


that summer magic

by curledupkitten (chanyeol)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 49,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanyeol/pseuds/curledupkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jongdae spends most of his on-shift time at Everland amusement park wishing that, as advertised, his dreams would actually come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> rng 2013

⚘⚘⚘

  
  
  
The bus leaves him at the front gates. Jongdae curls his toes inside his sneakers for a few moments as it drives away, empty save for the few passengers coming out from the city instead of into it at this time of day. The incessant clock in Jongdae’s head ticks the seconds at him as he watches the bus go.  
  
Then he inhales deeply, and lets all the air out through his nose in a whistle that’s part summer allergies and part purposeful noise making. Then he adjusts his backpack and hooks his thumbs through the loops on his jeans, and starts walking away from the main gates, back around until he gets to a much smaller side entrance that requires the use of the three keys he keeps on a separate ring from his apartment keys. These keys are attached to some random anime keychain Jongin had given him to keep him from losing them. Again. For the fourth time in as many months. ("In an alternate universe, I think of you as a responsible hyung," Jongin says, and Jongdae sneers playfully, replying with "In an alternate universe, your opinion matters to me," before nudging his roommate with a bony elbow and laughing at his wounded expression.)  
  
There’s no wind today, only a thick and murky humidity, and Jongdae’s shirt is sticking grossly to his back already. The sun isn’t even high in the sky yet, which bodes horribly for the afternoon temperature.  
  
"Welcome to  _hell_ ," Jongdae whispers to nobody as he lets himself in through one of the staff entrances at the back of the park. It creaks ominously, and he’s tempted to shriek like Jongin in a movie theater at the horrible noise. "I can’t believe it’s even possible for a place to get this quiet."  
  
Everland, it has always seemed to Jongdae, is a place that has too many nooks and corners and crannies to ever truly be sure all the children have been sent home at night. He always expects, come morning, to find one or two children snugly asleep in Aesop’s cottage, or a bedraggled teenage couple holed up in the Peter Pan, seatbelts digging into their sides. He never, ever expects the brutal silence that greets him most mornings, only the slow hush of wind through well-worn metal gears echoing in the air.  
  
Empty amusement parks are the  _scariest_. Jongdae is totally macho and resilient and stuff, but he can admit that his knees shake whenever the staff door whines at him for oiling. "Not my job," he tells it, stepping into the park and shutting and locking the staff gate behind him. "Tell Kris, silly." (And hey, Jongdae probably shouldn’t talk to gates.)  
  
What Jongdae’s job  _is_  requires him to put on his flowery costume, and sing and dance. It’s pretty close to the job he always wanted, except that in practice, it is  _nothing_  like the job he’s always wanted, because his audience isn’t watching him from stadium seats or their televisions, and his tights itch his crotch something fierce as soon as the temperature breaks twenty Celsius.  
  
He knows the way to his locker room with his eyes closed. It’s adjacent to Kris’s office and hidden behind the Castle of Oz in the back of Magic Land. ( _The problem with Everland,_  Kyungsoo always says,  _Is that there’s no coherency to, well, anything._ )  
  
Jongdae thinks the problem with Everland is that he has to dress up like a ‘Faerie of Laciun’ for approximately two-thirds of his summer. He still isn’t sure how he got this job, this most  _embarrassing_  of jobs, except that Jongin had oh-so-earnestly told him his friend Kris was looking for more singers and... Jongdae might have given up on becoming a professional singer, but he certainly hasn’t stopped loving to sing.  
  
He maybe owes Jongin a tarantula or two in his bed for setting him up on an interview at  _Everland_ , but Jongin is scared enough of his own shadow that Jongdae could probably just buy a few plastic ones from the Halloween section at Wow City and call it a day.  
  
Then again, it’s good money, working at Everland. Better money than Jongdae made working at that stationery shop in Jukjeon, and while he works long days, at least he’s doing something it takes his specific talents to do, rather than painfully organizing gel pens in ROY G BIV order. And with his salary, he’ll most likely be able to afford his tuition payment without asking his parents for help. That’s his biggest motivation, especially since they have a hard enough time staying afloat without having to worry about Jongdae, their rebellious son who wasted so much time trying to grab hold of dreams that were more like puffs of smoke.  
  
Jongdae adjusts his backpack again, resettling the weight of his two big bottles of water and clean clothes and lunch.  
  
It’s the beginning of summer, so everyone has to come in an hour earlier to prepare for the earlier opening time. But even with the staff trickling in one by one to fill the locker rooms, Everland is still significantly less bright and cheery until the gates are set to open at nine. Jongdae always feels like he’s walking to his death when he arrives, especially if he gets in after the sound techs, who start playing the eerie park music over the speakers as soon as they get the system up and running.  
  
Walking briskly across the park, past still-as-stone rollercoasters and abandoned snack vending carts, Jongdae leaves his headphones out of his ears in case any creepy amusement park monsters decide to attack. Jongdae wouldn’t really make a tasty meal, especially since he’s kinda small and probably tastes as sharp and acidic as his tongue tends to be this early in the morning. But just in case, he doesn’t listen to his music, bearing instead with the cheerful bells, flutes, and whistles of the Magic Land soundtrack.  
  
He peeks his head into Kris’s office, expecting to see him sitting folded under his too-small desk, gainfully scribbling these earnest drawings that Jongdae thinks are supposed to be diagrams of their choreography for the ‘Summer Splash’ festival but end up looking more like the angry efforts of a particularly untalented kindergartener.  
  
Instead, he finds only Baekhyun, with a cloud of candy in his right hand and one of Kris’s toys in his left. Jongdae frowns, because first of all, he needs to talk to Kris about taking that Tuesday off in a few weeks, for Jongin’s nephew’s one-year ceremony, and secondly, because Baekhyun doesn’t seem to have the same problems getting up in the morning as every other normal human being in the world. He’s already humming obnoxious children’s television show songs to himself.  _And_  Kris is nowhere to be found.  
  
Jongdae sighs and steps inside anyway, grabbing one of the foldout chairs and stretching it open to have a seat, preparing to wait for his boss. Kris is totally the last person anyone would expect to be in charge of the faeries at Everland, but Jongdae thinks he does a bang-up job at what is, pretty much, thankless work. Plus, all his languages come in handy, especially since half the faeries come from places outside Korea.  
  
Baekhyun slurps at his candy, spidery fingers of it clinging to his nose as he happily stuffs it in. Jongdae sighs again, and finally notices Kyungsoo is in the room too, out of the corner of his eye. Kyungsoo is a black hole in the back of the room, curled up with a pen in his mouth and staring at his notebook propped on his folded knees.  
  
"Morning," says Jongdae, waving pathetically and dropping his backpack before falling into his chair.  
  
"Wow," Baekhyun says, drawing the word out as obnoxiously as he can, twirling a piece of cotton candy around his index finger before shoving the digit in his mouth. He already has an obvious sugar-high and little bits of cloudy candy sticking to his lips. "Could you look  _any_  less happy to be here today?"  
  
Jongdae gazes disgustedly at the candy in Baekhyun’s hand. "Do you even  _know_  how old that is?"  
  
The machines haven’t even been primed for the day, so Jongdae knows Baekhyun hadn’t snuck off to make it when he’d gotten in, not more than a half an hour ago, even if that’s  _totally_  something Baekhyun would do. (Jongdae is ninety-nine percent sure that Baekhyun’s hands start to shake if he doesn’t eat enough of the treat every day. It’s a blessing, he’d decided long ago, that Baekhyun, with his high-pitched giggles and whiny laugh, doesn’t like  _coffee_.)  
  
"Sure I do," Baekhyun answers, bouncing up to sit on the desk. He promptly scatters the papers that Kris, their boss, had painstakingly organized Saturday afternoon. He also knocks several of Kris’s stuffed toys onto the floor in the process. "It’s from yesterday. Drag your underwear out of your butt and pull out the cheerful smile I know resides inside you."  
  
"There is no happiness inside me," says Jongdae, stealing the tiniest tendril of candy and eating it. It’s really stale. No  _way_  cotton candy that tastes this old is from yesterday. He gives Baekhyun a judgmental glare but Baekhyun is disgustingly shameless and just wriggles his ass all over more of Kris’s papers. "Besides, it’s six in the morning." The clock ticks. It’s probably closer to six-thirty, by now. Where is Kris? "No one is happy to be here."  
  
"Kyungsoo is happy to be here," Baekhyun says. Kyungsoo, at the sound of his name, looks up from where he’s been staring blankly at his secret notebook to look at them. His eyes are eerily empty, and Jongdae has to cover his mouth with his hand to hold in a sadistic laugh at Baekhyun’s surprised squeak. "Well, kind of?"  
  
"Absolutely thrilled," deadpans Kyungsoo. "Excited for another day of work at the Happiest Place on Earth—"  
  
"This  _isn’t_  Disney," Jongdae says, now smiling in earnest because Kyungsoo is furrowing his eyebrows at him. Baekhyun is too occupied chewing on disgustingly stale cotton candy to talk back, too, so why not smile? "We’ll have to settle for being ‘the Happiest Place in Korea~"  
  
"Don’t forget Lotte World," Baekhyun says. "Maybe we should stick to ‘Happiest Place in Gyeonggi Province’ or something."  
  
"Everland is bigger than Lotte World—"  
  
"Bigger isn’t always better," says Baekhyun, wiping his hand on his jeans and leaving behind a thin pink film on the thigh of them.  
  
"Is that what you tell yourself when you get out of the shower in the morning?" Jongdae asks Baekhyun with pseudo-pity. "It’s okay, Baekhyun-hyung, I’m sure there’s a girl for you out there somewhere who doesn’t mind—"  
  
"I hope there’s one out there for you even after I rip—"  
  
" _Anyway_ ," Kyungsoo says, rolling his huge eyes exaggeratedly, "the moral of the story is that we’re about to put on really stupid outfits and really thick makeup and perform for thousands of children for 16 hours. So forgive me if I’m not smiling." He shakes his head. "And to think, I thought I was too cool to be an idol."  
  
Jongdae’s gut rolls like he’s on that awful pirate ship ride. He remembers, vividly, handing his card back to the audition organizers, his shoulders hunched with defeat. He remembers the way the card had felt hanging around his neck as he botched the dance moves over and over and over again…  
  
He shoves it aside as quickly as it had flooded in, but it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that has nothing to do with practically ancient amusement park snacks.  
  
"I think you mean ‘not cool enough’," Jongdae corrects, and Baekhyun’s snort would be more gratifying if Baekhyun wasn’t the sort of guy to eat week old cotton candy in the morning to prevent sugar withdrawal. "I’m the only one of us that’s cool enough to have been an idol. I’m clearly the most talented and handsome faerie in Laciun, let’s all be honest with ourselves now."  
  
Kyungsoo’s chuckles are lost beneath Baekhyun’s loud groans of protest.  
  
Jongdae pushes his hair out of his face. He would have made a  _great_  idol. If he’d ever made it past auditions, that is. Only, well, he’d never made it past auditions, because he’s got two left feet and maybe even a third left foot for good measure and no one wants an uncoordinated, three-legged trainee. And he’d had bad experiences, with auditions, that had left this horrible taste in his mouth. Well, anyway, now he’s one year from a college degree and he’ll make an even greater accountant. Probably.  
  
"Hey!" Baekhyun says, smacking him with the empty cardboard candy cone. Some of the spun sugar left clinging to it sticks briefly on Jongdae’s cheek. "One Park Chanyeol is enough around this place, so watch it with the ego."  
  
"I don’t know," interrupts Chanyeol from the doorway. His shorts are hanging so low on his hips that Jongdae isn’t sure whether they’re over or under his backside. "I’m so great maybe there  _ought_  to be two of me."  
  
"You’re late," Kyungsoo informs him, with about as much emotion as he musters for most things in life that aren’t singing.  
  
"Naw, man," Chanyeol says. "I was with Kris and the new guy."  
  
"The new guy?" Baekhyun leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Papers crinkle ominously. "Tell me more."  
  
"What if I don’t want to?" Chanyeol asks, and Baekhyun’s eyebrow arches dangerously.  
  
"You want to," Baekhyun replies. "Because you remember, suddenly, that I’m just the right height to punch you in the—"  
  
"There’s a new guy," Chanyeol says. "Another munchkin for the munchkin club."  
  
Baekhyun bristles and mutters something about Chanyeol’s "abnormally long torso," and Kyungsoo looks back down at his notebook, scribbling something into it before smiling softly. Jongdae wonders, sometimes, if Kyungsoo’s making a hit list.  
  
"Like, is he going to be one of the faeries, or…" Jongdae trails off, looking down at his closely filed nails. The last new guy they’d gotten had been Jongdae himself.  
  
"Yeah," Chanyeol says, adjusting his baseball cap. "He’s so  _excited_ , too." Chanyeol seems amused. "He’s a total dork so he’ll fit in with the rest of you."  
  
Without hesitating, and in a single fluid motion, Baekhyun picks up one of the plush toys on Kris’s desk and throws it straight at Chanyeol’s head. It bounces off the rim of his baseball cap, but his eyes are as wide and startled as if Baekhyun had hit him smack in the forehead. "Go away, Chanyeol," Baekhyun says.  
  
"Why are you throwing Alexander?" Kris gently pushes Chanyeol aside to give himself room to enter his office, scooping the soft toy— _Alexander_ , Jongdae supposes—off the ground. He dusts off the plushie and smiles at it.  
  
"Where’s the new guy?" asks Kyungsoo, and Kris sets Alexander carefully back with the other toys as he looks with barely concealed dismay at the mess Baekhyun has made of his desk.  
  
"And what’s he like?" Baekhyun asks, sliding down from his seat, unrepentant despite Kris’s clear distress. "Is he pretty enough to be here? Does he have a cute personality, or is he made of acid like our Jongdae, smiling as his touch burns holes in your skin like--"  
  
"I’m going to put acid in your expensive Sephora face wash," Jongdae says pleasantly. "Then you will know the difference between that and what I’m made of."  
  
Kyungsoo pats him with the barest brush of fingertips in approval, and Jongdae smiles benignly at Baekhyun.  
  
"You’ll meet him tomorrow," Kris says. "Get changed! Get out of my office! How did you even get in here?" Baekhyun opens his mouth, and Jongdae wants to roll his eyes in advance about whatever lie Baekhyun is going to tell that circumvents the fact that he’s had a key to Kris’s office as long as Jongdae’s known him. "Nevermind, I don’t want to know, because it’s going to give me a migraine. Don’t you guys remember that the gates open an  _hour earlier_  during the summer season?"  
  
"You need to relax," Jongdae says. "Have a drink or something."  
  
"The fact that you’re suggesting drinks at six-something in the morning explains so much about you," Baekhyun says and Jongdae pointedly gives Baekhyun’s pink, candy-stained fingers a once over. Chanyeol is laughing and Kyungsoo is closing his notebook with finality.  
  
"Oh, Baekhyun, you’re still here." Jongdae pretends to be surprised at his presence, and Baekhyun blusters.  
  
And then they’re being herded by Chanyeol out the door, Baekhyun still peppering Kris with questions even as Jongdae wraps fingers around his wrist and pulls him toward the lockers. Chanyeol just laughs and makes the same pompous faces at them he’ll make later when he’s dressed up like the enemy prince, and Jongdae ignores all those teeth for the welcoming air conditioning of their locker room.  
  
It isn’t until Jongdae has one leg into his sky-blue tights that he realizes that in all the commotion, he’d forgotten to ask for that Tuesday next month off.  
  
"Well, I’ve put it off this long, what’s one more day?"  
  
"What have you put off?" Kyungsoo asks quietly, and Jongdae grins without much feeling behind it.  
  
"Pretty much everything," he replies, thinking about Jongin and his tuition and his homework and that call he still hasn’t made to his mother, smoothing his tunic and nibbling at his lip. Time passes more quickly when there are so many deadlines to meet. "Nothing for you to worry about."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
Located in the heart of Gyeonggi Province, Everland  _is_  actually the biggest amusement park in South Korea. Jongdae remembers, when he was a kid, getting super excited for that ‘once a summer’ trip to ride on all the rides and see all the magical creatures that wander the park. He’d eat his fill of sugary snacks and hot dogs, and beat his friend in all the arcade games, and relish the shrieks of his mother when he made her get on the T-Express with him, when he had finally gotten tall enough to ride. He’d enjoyed the weird blend of fairy tales and global cuisine and spaghetti westerns, never stopping to question what Magic Land and American Adventure were doing next to each other on the park guide.  
  
Now, though, from beneath five layers of BB cream and a blue crushed velvet vest, he has a much different view of summers at Everland.  
  
"It’s almost time for the first show," Lu Han says, creeping up behind him and immediately resting his hands on Jongdae’s hips. "Happy Saturday! Although how we’re going to do the show with just Kibeom’s timid understudy, I have no idea."  
  
"I’d managed to block that upsetting reality from my mind," Jongdae says, spinning around in Lu Han’s grip to face him. "Why did Kibeom-hyung have to leave  _right_  after we started Summer Splash?"  
  
"Apparently medical school is ‘very demanding’," Lu Han says, making exaggerated quotes in the air as he lowers his voice. "I don’t get what’s so hard about cutting people open." He mimes a stabbing motion and Jongdae shudders at the image of Lu Han helming an operation.  
  
"I mean, I  _guess_  his reasons are valid," Jongdae says. "I just wish he’d given Kris time to find a replacement." Kibeom had just sort of… quit two days ago, hands in the pockets of his cut-off denim short shorts as he talked about devoting more time to his true passion of ‘aesthetic perfection’. "But if he really wants to be a plastic surgeon, he does need to devote all his time to it." Jongdae bares his teeth. "After all, he wouldn’t want to make any mistakes."  
  
Heaven knows Jongdae himself should devote more time to school. He’s been taking it slowly this year, two classes a semester, so he only has to go in to actual school on Monday and Wednesday. It enables him to work a full time job. There still never seems to be enough time. He finds himself doing assignments at three in the morning for a class at nine, and he hasn’t been on a date in two years. Not that there’s really been anyone he wanted to go on a date with. Not that there’s been anyone that wanted to go on a date with him.  
  
" _Soooo~_ ," Lu Han breaks Jongdae’s train of thought, "maybe that’s what the new guy is for." Lu Han’s pink wig is askew as he creeps closer into Jongdae’s personal space. "To replace Kibeom."  
  
"Did  _you_  see the new guy this morning?" Jongdae smiles and waves at a toddler clutching an oversized lollipop in each hand, wriggling each finger separately until the child giggles back at him. Jongdae is good with children.  
  
"No." Lu Han pouts. "Only Chanyeol and Kris saw him. But I’ll bet you cash-money he’s going to replace Kibeom as the Summer Prince in the show."  
  
"I’m not taking that bet." Jongdae tugs his sleeve down to cover his wrist. "It makes sense to me."  
  
"Spoil sport."  
  
"Baekhyun could do the role, probably." Truth is, Jongdae could do it. But Jongdae has an important role to play in the show already, as the faerie prince’s best friend that gets trapped with him in the Winter Prince’s evil plot. It’s a role with a lot of high notes.  
  
"His voice isn’t… sweet… enough," says Lu Han delicately. Jongdae wouldn’t have been so delicate. Baekhyun has a great voice but has a tendency to screech when he’s excited, like a cat in heat. Besides, the Summer Prince is supposed to be mellow. Baekhyun is a lot of things, but he’s certainly not  _mellow_ , by any stretch of the imagination. "Anyway, we’re doing the show with the helpless kid today, three times, so you’ll have to pick up his slack since you work most closely with the Summer Prince."  
  
"Yixing-hyung already warned me." In his own way. With a lot of airy hand gestures and spacy looks up at the sky. Jongdae had found it cute. "He told me to protect his masterpiece."  
  
"I see." Lu Han slides his hands provocatively up Jongdae’s sides one last time for good measure before stepping away. "Well, I’m going to go reapply my rhinestones and drag Baekhyun back into his ribbon jacket. See you at the fountain!"  
  
"Good luck with that." Baekhyun is notoriously difficult to get into his complete costume, especially since he’s started putting in extra hours at the gym and has buff arms. "Don’t get any bruises or Kris will nag you to death."  
  
"I’d like to see him try," replies Lu Han, smirking. "And Byun Baekhyun is no match for me." He cracks his knuckles, and Jongdae winces.  
  
"Hey," he says, just as Lu Han starts to walk away, "you could do it."  
  
"Do what?" Lu Han’s wig slides back into place at the cock of his head, and Jongdae lifts both eyebrows.  
  
"The role. Kibeom’s role. The Summer Prince." Jongdae shrugs. "You’re definitely good enough."  
  
"Oh, probably," Lu Han says, jaw unhinging like a python with a too-big laugh. "But then who’d be Tinkerbell?"  
  
"Someone more…" Lu Han scratches at his balls after a quick look around to make sure no one’s watching, "Tinkerbell-ish."  
  
"No way," says Lu Han. "Catch you later, kid." He pauses. "Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you complimented me just now."  
  
"Good," Jongdae says. "I have a reputation to uphold."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
This year’s Summer Splash is a lot different to last year’s. For one thing, Yixing was given charge of the whole script from start to finish, and with Chanyeol helping him with the sound mixing when he wasn’t too busy ogling Krystal, it’s actually… pretty good. Still cheesy, because Yixing is Yixing and a tiger can’t change his stripes, but good.  
  
Jongdae has the role of the Summer Prince’s faithful sidekick. The Summer Prince is trapped in a complicated mirror world of the Winter Prince’s design, and Jongdae is trapped with him. He and the prince have to find their way out before the clock strikes midnight or they’ll never be able to rescue the Summer Princess from the Winter Prince’s ~evil clutches~.  
  
Kibeom’s understudy, a sturdy looking man named Hyunsik who looks nothing remotely like a faerie, manages not to stumble up too badly during the first show, although he blushes furiously beneath his caked on make-up when he has to kiss Krystal Jung on the cheek after he saves her from the tyrannical Chanyeol.  
  
(Chanyeol can smell fear, and cackles extra-evilly at the poor guy. Jongdae will get him back by putting food coloring in his toothpaste later. The only way to get revenge on Chanyeol is by threatening his appearance. Jongdae learned that his first week here, when Chanyeol had had a small panic attack about a piece of lettuce stuck between his front teeth and Kris had needed to talk him down with toothpicks and a soft tone.)  
  
By the end of the third show, however, Hyunsik looks worn thin, skin transparent beneath his lavender eye shadow, and his large hands trembling. "I don’t know how Kibeom-hyung did this," he says. "I don’t know how you do this."  
  
"Practice." Jongdae claps the much larger man comfortingly on the shoulder. "It gets easier."  
  
"Ugh, I’d rather go back to being in the chorus," he says, and Jongdae smiles at him more gently than he’d smile at most people. "I can’t wait for the new guy to start."  
  
"So he  _is_  the Summer Prince?" Jongdae had known Lu Han’s wager was a sucker’s bet. "We all thought so."  
  
"Yes," Hyunsik says. "Definitely. And he won’t look so out of place with you guys." He laughs. "Kris told me all solemn, like he thought I’d be disappointed to no longer be the oversized member of the cast."  
  
"Was that a short joke?" Jongdae’s hand tightens on Hyunsik’s shoulder. "Because Chanyeol’s just over there and I’m sure he’s dying to go over your performance with you."  
  
"It wasn’t, I swear. I would never!" He waves his hands wildly before excusing himself, leaving Jongdae to wait for Kyungsoo, who has his key to the locker room.  
  
"Don’t pick on the understudy," Kyungsoo says, slinking up behind Jongdae without Jongdae even having noticed he arrived. "Not everyone has your confidence."  
  
Jongdae’s confidence. Right.  
  
"I wasn’t picking on him," Jongdae defends. "I was just reminding him that although I can be nice, mostly I am dangerous."  
  
"Sure you are," says Kyungsoo, without moving a single facial muscle. "Extremely dangerous. Let’s go gather Baekhyun up from the cotton candy vendor at the far edge of Zoo-topia and hope he hasn’t lost his jacket."  
  
"I pray he hasn’t," Jongdae says. "I’m kind of in a hurry to get home."  
  
"Oh, right," Kyungsoo says. "Doesn’t the last bus leave soon?"  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says, "though if worst comes to worst I’ll get a taxi." It might get him home fast enough that he’ll snag one anyway. He has about three hours’ worth of accounting homework for his Monday morning class and he knows the weariness will have set in too deeply by tomorrow night for him to put it off until then. Weekends are always the worst, because weekends are when they do the shows. The rest of the week is a relative breeze, just wandering around and smiling at children and maybe their parents, and using his limited English to try valiantly to communicate with all the foreigners they’ve got on staff to play various members of the Laciun fairy tale brigade.  
  
"You’ll make it," Kyungsoo says quietly, and Jongdae grins at him.  
  
"Of course I will," Jongdae says. "But possibly only if the new guy is any good."  
  
"We’ll find out tomorrow," replies Kyungsoo, and Jongdae feels an itch of excitement at the base of his spine, although it might just be the polyester of his undershirt.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"You’re home late," Jongin says, shoving pieces of boneless chicken into his mouth one by one and not moving his eyes from the television screen. "Like, an hour late."  
  
"I got held up at work," Jongdae says. Baekhyun had lost his jacket and Lu Han had lost his ability to not tell Kris about the lost jacket and Jongdae had lost an hour of his life helping look for the damn lost jacket. "Stupid stuff." He throws his backpack onto the floor by the sofa and resists the temptation to slump down beside Jongin. He probably smells of sweat and velvet and children, and he doesn’t want it to sink into the upholstery.  
  
"Oh," Jongin says, turning to him as the commercial begins. "Do you want some chicken?" Jongdae considers taking some just because Jongin looks so earnest. "It just came like twenty minutes ago."  
  
"That’s okay," Jongdae says. "I watched Baekhyun eat enough cotton candy over the course of the last two hours that I think I’m put off eating for the next couple of days."  
  
"If you’re sure…" Jongin gives him this  _look_ , like he doesn’t trust people who turn down chicken, but then he turns back to the television. "I love this commercial."  
  
"It’s for tinted moisturizer, Jongin."  
  
"It’s Lee Hyori, so who cares what the product is?" Jongin wipes at chicken grease on his mouth with the back of his hand, but just ends up spreading it from his lips to his cheeks and chin. "You’d have to be blind to think she isn’t hot."  
  
"Mmm," Jongdae says, noncommittal, and Jongin looks over at him again. His eyes tell Jongdae he thinks he may need a new roommate since Jongdae clearly is an alien monster who doesn’t like Lee Hyori or fried chicken. "I mean, yeah," he corrects, "she is."  
  
Jongin sighs and rubs his hands on the thighs of his jeans. "Are you headed to bed?"  
  
"Homework." Jongdae grimaces at him. "Not something you’d know much about, I wager."  
  
"Sure I know about it," Jongin says. "I just don’t, you know,  _do it_." He surveys the carnage of what used to be his takeout. "No one in my class can ever know this chicken happened, though. We’re supposed to be preparing gourmet at home all week." He tilts head sideways. "Does that count as homework?"  
  
"You still don’t do it," Jongdae says. His skin is crawling. He needs to shower.  
  
"Well," Jongin says, "I am a genius at what I do."  
  
"Bully for you," says Jongdae. "I wonder what your classmates would say if they knew this fried chicken catastrophe happened once a week?" Jongdae walks into the kitchen and pours himself sweetened tea. "Is that a mark of shame in culinary school?"  
  
"I don’t know," Jongin says, and his mouth is still slick with chicken grease. Jongdae figures he knows why Jongin prefers his fancy French Cuisine Only classmates not to know about his late night takeout indulgences. "But I’d prefer not to find out."  
  
"I’ll keep your secret," says Jongdae with a laugh that feels like it takes more energy than he has. "On the condition that when you open your big fancy restaurant, you let me eat for free."  
  
"What if I hire you to do the books?" Jongin grins at him. "Goodness knows I don’t have any other friends who can do math." Jongin’s grin grows. "But be warned, it’s going to be a very popular restaurant that makes a  _lot_  of money, so it won’t be an easy job."  
  
Sometimes Jongdae is envious of the way Jongin’s face still lights up when he talks about the future. Jongin has so many things he wants out of life. Jongdae used to have big hopes but every rejection whittled him down until he felt small enough to fit inside the box his parents had always hoped he would. It’s fine, because Jongdae is going to make a great accountant. And look, he’s already got his first job offer.  
  
He knows he’s not as good as his career-minded sister without being told.  
  
His throat feels sore, so he drinks more tea. "Yah, you’ll need to get through culinary school first, Kim Jongin. Do your homework."  
  
"I will," Jongin says. "I worked too hard to get in to let anything kick me out."  
  
"I know," Jongdae says. "I should work on  _my_  homework." He rolls his shoulders. His whole body aches from three shows. "It’s not going to do itself, unfortunately." But he’ll shower first, with the hottest water he can manage.  
  
He goes back into the kitchen to rinse his cup, and after he’s set it onto the drying rack he walks back into the living room to grab his backpack. He groans when he bends over, and tries not to think about how many times he’d jumped on the trampoline today during the show finale.  
  
"Hey… hyung…" Jongdae looks at Jongin. His face is all screwed up, mouth puckered. "Make sure you get some sleep? Every fight is easier if you’re not also fighting to stay awake."  
  
(It’s the same thing Jongdae had told Jongin, when they’d met in high school. Jongin had a tendency to fall asleep standing up, in dangerous places, back then, and Jongdae hadn’t known it was because Jongin spent late nights trying to study French and practice making soufflés. "Hey you," Jongdae had said. "One fight at a time, okay?" And Jongin had given him a sleepy smile that had made Jongdae want to take him under his wing.  
  
Besides, Jongin had never really minded the stuff about Jongdae that made it harder for him to make friends, like the constant singing under his breath or the reflexive sarcasm. Or the whole ‘attracted to other dudes’ thing that Jongdae has never actually ever broached with Jongin, but he’s sometimes pretty sure Jongin knows anyway.)  
  
"I’ll do my best," Jongdae says, and feels like this time, his grin is more honest.  
  
"Did you ask for that Tuesday off yet?" Jongin calls, and Jongdae cringes and makes a mental note. "My sister called to confirm."  
  
"I will," Jongdae calls back. "Tomorrow morning. I won’t forget."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"You look like you’ve been run over by a truck," Yixing says. "A delivery truck, one of those really heavy refrigerated ones with whole butchered cows in the back."  
  
"Gee whiz, thanks, hyung," Jongdae says, and winces at the dryness of his throat. He pops in another lozenge, and hopes it soothes it. He’d managed to catch two hours of sleep last night, but his morning alarm had made him want to curl up in a cave and seal himself away until next summer like a bear or something. "And I feel great too, thanks for asking."  
  
Yixing doesn’t reply. Instead he grabs two of the plush toys on Kris’s desk and starts making them do a weird little dance. "What do you think?" he asks Jongdae after a minute or two, and Jongdae blearily blinks at him.  
  
"About what?"  
  
"The choreography," Yixing says patiently, like whatever weird crap he’s doing with the two stuffed toys makes sense. "Do you think it would look good for the Horror Night Festival?"  
  
Jongdae blinks again. He’s ninety percent sure that Yixing is a creature from Planet Weird, but the other ten percent of him has lived with Jongin for two years and seen him make his labeling sharpies have conversations. "I don’t know. Isn’t it early to be thinking about Horror Night?"  
  
"No," clarifies Yixing. "It. Is. Not." He crosses his arms and looks at Jongdae impatiently.  
  
"Okay." Jongdae scratches behind his ear. His nail catches on a mosquito bite, and he does his best not to irritate it more. "Then I think the choreography is fabulous. Encore, bravo."  
  
"You weren’t really even paying attention," says Yixing, and Jongdae is at a loss.  
  
"You’re right," Jongdae says. His face itches, but he’s already wearing his make-up so he can’t claw at it. "You should make Alexander and…" he studies the second stuffed animal and tries to remember a name. "Ace? Do the choreography for me again, so I can be sure." He keeps a straight face, despite the odds.  
  
"No time for that," Baekhyun says, walking into Kris’s office already wearing the bottom half of his costume. "It’s time to meet the new guy."  
  
"Where’s Kris?" Jongdae pulls at his shirt, black cotton already slightly damp with sweat. His costume is going to be  _murder_  today. "I need to talk to him."  
  
"He’s on the phone with the big boss man," Baekhyun says. "He left the new guy with Chanyeol and Kyungsoo." He taps his foot impatiently. "Aren’t you the least bit curious?"  
  
"I am," Jongdae says. "It’s just that I promised Jongin I’d talk to Kris about something today, and once the park opens, it’s pretty much impossible to get a word with him."  
  
"It’s impossible now, too," Yixing says. "Go meet the new Summer Prince. I picked him myself."  
  
"Did you?" That mostly guarantees it’ll be someone eccentric. Kibeom had been a living, breathing,  _spectacle_ , so Jongdae can only assume… "Oh boy."  
  
He follows Baekhyun out of the office, past the locker rooms and out onto Main Street. They walk for about five minutes, Baekhyun chatting about this and that as he pulls pieces of ice-blue fluff off his cotton candy cone and shoves them into his mouth, until they get to the stairs that lead down to the Rose Garden. In front of the stairs Jongdae sees Chanyeol, with his baseball cap turned sideways, talking to Kyungsoo and another man who is looking up at him, patient and affectionate already, which Chanyeol is soaking up chia pet style like it’s his due.  
  
And when they’re close enough that Jongdae can completely make out the man’s features, his brain supplying recognition, he thinks he might throw up.  
  
"And here’s Baekhyun, another of our faeries here in Laciun," Chanyeol says. "He works mostly with Kyungsoo during the show, as head of the Summer Guard." Chanyeol smiles. "And this is your right hand man, the Summer Prince’s best friend."  
  
And,  _oh no_ , he’s still just as attractive as he’d been on Jongdae’s first day of high school. Calm, friendly, and collected, with his hand outstretched for a shake as Jongdae had tried to keep his glasses from falling off his face.  
  
"Hi there," says the man. He still has an infectious smile, and Jongdae's heart is beating  _way_  too fast. "I'm Kim Joonmyun."  
  
"I know," Jongdae says, before he can stop himself, and he feels stupid, in his black shirt and his blue wig and painted face. He feels stupid because he's standing in front of  _Kim Joonmyun_ , and he looks like a complete idiot. "I mean... I..."  
  
"Smooth," Baekhyun murmurs loud enough for Jongdae and only Jongdae to hear, and that deserves a kick to the knee-cap, but Jongdae is too busy making a fool out of himself to carry that out.  
  
The Rose Garden looks nice today. It might be a good place to bury Jongdae’s corpse should he die right here and now.  
  
Joonmyun narrows his eyes, looking at Jongdae more carefully, and then they widen again with recognition that Jongdae had sort of hoped would not flare. "Oh!" says Joonmyun. "It's... I didn't recognize you, Jongdae!"  
  
And now Jongdae is thankful for all the make-up, because at least the slow crawl of a blush up his neck to his cheeks is hidden under layers and layers of it. "I didn't expect you to, what with all the..." He gestures to his face, and Baekhyun, that asshole, is still laughing. Kyungsoo is quiet, taking everything in, and Chanyeol is glancing back and forth between Joonmyun and Jongdae in fascination.  
  
"Trust me, your smile is hard to forget," Joonmyun says lightly, like he's not grabbing Jongdae's heart between his hands and squeezing it dry until it's just a wrung out husk of its former self. Joonmyun, Jongdae recalls, is always saying sweet and lovely things like that, with his eyes glinting and his cheeks pulled in an effortless grin. He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s not flirting.  
  
That knowledge doesn't stop the butterflies. Jongdae is suddenly sixteen all over again, with his JYP audition invitation in one hand and all his insecurities sealed in a handwritten confession letter in the other, and it sucks.  
  
"So you two know each other?" Chanyeol asks, fixing his fringe as he talks, and Baekhyun mutters  _obviously, you oaf,_  under his breath as Joonmyun takes a step closer to Jongdae. Jongdae barely resists taking a step back.  
  
"We went to high school together," says Jongdae breezily, like it isn't a huge deal, and like Kim Joonmyun wasn't the person that made Jongdae realize that maybe preferring to watch porn on his dad's laptop that starred men was probably something that applied in his real life as well. Like Kim Joonmyun wasn't Jongdae's first crush. Like Jongdae has ever gotten over it, even though it's been a few years and Jongdae is supposed to be practical and realistic now, all those dreams he’d had as a smart-mouthed teenager punctured like so many leftover party balloons.  
  
"Jongdae was a first year when I was a third," Joonmyun adds. "We were in choir together." Joonmyun takes another step closer. Jongdae can smell his cologne. It’s a light and fruity scent. "Jongdae always refused to eat lunch with me when I offered, though." Joonmyun looks chagrined. "I was never sure why."  
  
"Because his heart is made of ice and venom," answers Baekhyun, and Joonmyun, surprised, flickers his gaze to Jongdae. And,  _oh_ , he's a tad shorter than Jongdae, now, and his face is more mature but his eyes are still exactly the same.  
  
"I was  _nervous_ ," Jongdae blurts out, and then regrets it immediately as everyone stares at him. "Because, uh, you were so much...older..." And also beautiful and kind and basically every other kind of wonderful, Jongdae doesn't add, because this is already the most awkward conversation he's had since he ran into his old vocal coach last year and told him he'd given up on singing as a career.  
  
"Oh," Joonmyun says. "I always thought I had done something to offend you, the way you were forever running away." His expression is playful now. The sunlight hits him and… There's a red tint in his hair. It suits him. Everything suits him. It really isn't fair at all.  
  
"He  _ran away_?" Baekhyun is never going to let Jongdae live this down. Kyungsoo seems to be longing for his notebook.  
  
"No, no, no, please, I was  _fifteen_ \--"  
  
"This is so good." Baekhyun says. "Rattlesnake-mouth Jongdae running away from his seonbae because he was  _nervous_."  
  
"Shut up, shut up, shut up," Jongdae hisses, and Joonmyun’s mouth is curled up in a lovely smile with just a hint of mischief. Jongdae is going to melt and for once it isn’t because of the heat and humidity. "I will tear you to pieces and feed you to Lu Han."  
  
"Kinky," Baekhyun whispers back.  
  
"Anyway, Jongdae, it’ll be a pleasure to sing with you again."  
  
Jongdae wants to point out that they had never actually sung together in choir. He’d made sure to shift himself out of sight as often as he could, because he didn’t understand the way he felt when Joonmyun’s gaze landed on him. (Or, possibly, he hadn’t wanted to understand, because it would have made things more complicated than they already were and Jongdae’d had  _auditions_  to think about.)  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says. His voice is steadier than he’d thought it would be. "A pleasure."  
  
"Joonmyun will just be observing today," Chanyeol says. "Since the show is fractured, taking place all over the park at different times, he’ll just follow Kris on his rounds and see mostly his own parts."  
  
"That makes sense," says Baekhyun, "considering he’ll really need to see the blocking. Most people have never participated in a moving show before."  
  
"Because it’s  _weird_ ," Jongdae says. He tries to fall into his familiar role. It mostly works. He’s still unsettled. He avoids Joonmyun’s gaze.  
  
Chanyeol reaches out to shove him but he ducks. "I think you mean awesome. Everything happens in different places in the park, which gives us a lot of sets."  
  
"I think I get it," says Joonmyun. "So when, in the script, the Summer Prince and his best friend get tricked into the lion’s den, that takes place in the Safari Zone. So that way, people in the Safari Zone get to see part of the show, and later, if they head to Global Fair, they’ll see another part?"  
  
"Right!" Chanyeol’s grin turns megawatt. "Isn’t that awesome?"  
  
"It is," Joonmyun responds, looking completely serious. Of course he is. Jongdae’s rib cage is collapsing catastrophically.  
  
"And let me guess," Kyungsoo says, "next week we’ll have double rehearsals?"  
  
"You got it," Chanyeol says. "Don’t worry, we’re all making overtime for it."  
  
Jongdae closes his eyes. Double rehearsals mean skipping mealtimes and maybe even sleep to get his assignments done. Double rehearsals mean taxi rides home instead of the bus, which is okay every once in a while but eventually starts to add up, cost-wise.  
  
"Is everything all right, Jongdae?" Joonmyun asks, and when he opens his eyes, Joonmyun is staring at him. No one else is. Kyungsoo is trying to stop Baekhyun and Chanyeol from ripping out each other’s throats over who-knows-what. Jongdae must have missed an insult somehow.  
  
He pastes a smile on his face. "Yup," he says. "Everything’s fine."  
  
"I’m sorry there’s going to be extra work because of me." Joonmyun’s cologne just smells  _so nice_. In high school, he’d just smelled like boy and like dry erase markers. This is way worse.  
  
"It’s not your fault," Jongdae says, and gives Joonmyun a more genuine grin. "Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out."  
  
"That’s good," Joonmyun says. "I’d hate to stress you out right after seeing you again for the first time in years."  
  
"I stress myself out just fine," assures Jongdae. "I don’t need any help to do that." And he should head to the locker room, now, because they’re running out of time to change. Jongdae wants to add another layer of white cream make-up to his neck, too, because he thinks his skin is so flush that three layers can’t possibly be enough to conceal it.  
  
"I’ll keep that in mind." Joonmyun delivers another devastating grin and Jongdae can feel it all the way down to the tips of his toes.  
  
Later, in the locker room, after Baekhyun’s made at least three jokes at Jongdae’s expense ("No, don’t run away, Jongdae, I’m not done yet—" " _You’d_  better run away," Jongdae replies, "or we’ll see if maybe you can hit my high notes, after all." He makes a threatening vice-like motion with his hands and then twists.) and Jongdae has fumbled his way into his tights without snagging them anywhere, Kyungsoo catches his wrist in a surprisingly firm grip.  
  
"Is there something…" He makes a noise in the back of his throat that Jongdae could almost mistake for concern, but that’s not really one of the emotions in Kyungsoo’s repertoire. "Is having Kim Joonmyun around going to make you weird?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Jongdae straightens his collar in the mirror, pushing out wrinkles in the fabric. He rubs a thumb over each shiny button on his vest and tugs at the sleeves of his jacket.  
  
"You’re…" Kyungsoo puckers his large lips in a momentary flash of frustration before his face goes placid again. "Did you… have some sort of problem with him? In high school?" His gaze flickers left. Baekhyun is bickering with Lu Han over  _his_  jacket, so he isn’t paying attention.  
  
"Kim Joonmyun is perfect," says Jongdae, after a long moment of thought. Kim Joonmyun is smart and funny and kind. He dresses in designer clothes and doesn’t make a big deal about it. His family is rich and his brother studies something fancy at Sogang and he’s probably got some super hot girlfriend. Perfect. "How could I possibly have a problem with that?"  
  
"You tell me," Kyungsoo says, and Lu Han chooses then to hop over with far too much energy and shove them both into the costume lockers.  
  
"Let’s go, slow pokes! We’re going to be late for the opening of the gates ceremony!"  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
During the second show of the day, Jongdae swears he can feel Joonmyun watching him. He chastises himself with  _he’s supposed to watch you, Jongdae, he’s going to play opposite you in the show_  but it doesn’t stop him from getting anxious every time he has to belt out a challenging verse in one of Yixing’s ridiculous songs.  
  
With the way things are going, he might not survive having to actually act with Joonmyun, or sing with Joonmyun.  
  
"Pull yourself together," Lu Han says, after they pass through the Rose Garden and up into European Adventure. "I thought you were going to fall into tiny sprinkles of faerie dust right there at the end of that last song."  
  
"I’m just tired," Jongdae says, ignoring the way his stomach is staging a full-out rebellion.  
  
Lu Han wags his fingers in Jongdae’s face. "Faeries don’t get tired. They only get more magical. So pep up!"  
  
"Who died and made you in charge of anything?" Jongdae snaps, and Lu Han pinches his cheek.  
  
"And there’s my Jongdae," he coos. "I missed you belittling me today."  
  
"I never miss Jongdae’s smartass comments," Baekhyun says, green cotton candy like silk threads between his long fingers. "I’m thinking I like this new Summer Prince a whole lot."  
  
"Joonmyun?" Lu Han looks speculative. "Joonmyun makes Jongdae quiet?"  
  
"Don’t be ridiculous." Jongdae stares at the toes of his shiny blue pleather shoes. "I just have finals coming up and I haven’t slept more than four hours a night in the past two weeks."  
  
When he chances a look up, both Baekhyun and Lu Han seem mildly alarmed. "That’s not a lot of sleep, kid," Lu Han says, finally.  
  
Jongdae hadn’t meant to tell them that. He must be more exhausted than he’d previously thought. He tries to keep his personal problems out of the workplace.  
  
"I’m not a kid," Jongdae says. "And hey, I guess I must be getting  _really_  magical."  
  
If Lu Han and Baekhyun are nicer to him for the rest of the day, he doesn’t notice. He’s too distracted by the two-ton weight of Joonmyun’s eyes on him as he sings to Hyunsik, encouraging him to enter Aesop’s Garden to rescue the Summer Princess.  
  
"Your voice is really beautiful," Joonmyun tells him, at the end of the day. "I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to keep up with you."  
  
"Your voice is beautiful too," Jongdae says. "Seriously."  
  
"You’re just saying that," Joonmyun says. He laughs. His teeth are so white. Jongdae is going to wither away into nothingness. "You haven’t heard me sing in years."  
  
Well, yeah, but Jongdae remembers the sweetness of Joonmyun’s tone. The gentleness.  
  
"I’m not," says Jongdae. "I don’t say nice things just to say something, you know."  
  
"Then," and Joonmyun grabs Jongdae’s gaze and holds it, "thank you very much, Jongdae."  
  
"You’re welcome," Jongdae says faintly, before he mumbles an excuse and disappears into the locker room to change.

  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"Did you ask your boss for the day off?" Jongin asks, when Jongdae gets out of the shower. Jongdae’s toweling his hair dry as Jongin peeks in, hands up in the sleeves of his sweatshirt.  
  
"I didn’t have the chance." Jongin’s face falls. "I promise I’ll get the day off, Jongin. Things have just been really hectic—"  
  
"If you don’t want to go, it’s fine," Jongin says, interrupting him. "You don’t… have to go."  
  
Jongdae knows if he doesn’t go, Jongin won’t go. Jongin had barely mustered up the courage to RSVP to his sister’s ceremony, knowing that his parents would be there. It had only been Jongdae’s quiet promise to accompany him that had gotten Jongin to fill out the small white card and Jongdae had been the one to slip it into the mailbox after four days of Jongin’s waffling.  
  
"I’m going, Jongin. Of course I’m going. I really have been overwhelmed at work, okay?" He tries to keep the strain out of his tone, but Jongin must hear it anyway.  
  
"I’m sorry," Jongin says. "I know I’m being a baby right now." He gives Jongdae a pitiful stare. "You’ve never broken a promise to me, so you won’t start now."  
  
"Absolutely," Jongdae says. "I’ll get the day off, I swear."  
  
"Okay," Jongin says, and burrows himself deeper inside his sweatshirt. "I trust you." Jongin takes a closer look at Jongdae. "And  _sleep_. Don’t think I didn’t hear you making coffee at four AM last night."  
  
"This morning," Jongdae corrects. "Four AM this morning. I was waking up."  
  
"That’s inhumane," Jongin replies, smiling wide enough that his eyes wrinkle up, suddenly less boy and more oversized puppy. "Sleep, sleep, sleep."  
  
"Okay, okay," says Jongdae. "I’m sleeping now, so go away."  
  
"G’night." Jongin starts to close Jongdae’s door, but then opens it wider again. "And… thank you."  
  
"For nothing," Jongdae says, and Jongin shakes his head, fluffy curls bouncing with the action.  
  
"For everything," Jongin says. "I hope that, one day, all the good things you do are paid back to you somehow, hyung."  
  
"That’s not the way the world works, Jongin," Jongdae says. "We just have to be the best people we can be and hope we make it through the gauntlet."  
  
"That’s really sad, hyung." Jongin leans against the doorframe. "What do you want from tomorrow? From the day after that? From next year? Five years from now?" Jongdae looks at Jongin, who wants to open a big fancy restaurant and show everyone his food. Jongin, who earned himself a scholarship to a big-time culinary school and went, even when his parents basically told him it was his dreams or them. He wishes he still had that kind of optimism.  
  
Jongdae shrugs. "Nothing," he replies. "If I don’t want anything, I can’t be disappointed when I don’t get it." He stares at his feet. Jongin is indecisively standing in the door. He wants to say something, Jongdae can tell. Wants to argue.  
  
"Goodnight," Jongin whispers, and Jongdae lets his towel fall to the floor, damp from his hair.  
  
"Goodnight, Jongin." Jongdae has time to sleep three and a half hours before he has to wake up again. He should take advantage of it.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"I bought you a coffee," Zitao says, sliding it across the table. The small student lounge area isn’t crowded today, which is unusual. Jongdae thinks it’s the only thing that’s gone right today so far. "Maybe you should skip your second class today and take a nap."  
  
"I pay for these classes," answers Jongdae. "I can’t just skip them because I’m a little sleepy on a Monday morning."  
  
"You’re not ‘a little sleepy’, though." Zitao rubs Jongdae’s back in slow circles and Jongdae’s eyes feel even heavier. "You’re about to pass out."  
  
"We’ve got a new guy at work to replace Kibeom-hyung." Jongdae curls into Zitao’s touch and Zitao laughs. "He’s a pretty quick study but it’s still double rehearsals."  _And also, post script, I used to be head over heels for him when I was a kid and_ wow _you’d think these things would go away._  
  
(Jongdae has learned, however, that everything he used to like about Kim Joonmyun hasn’t changed, and neither has the nauseating feeling Jongdae gets when Joonmyun unleashes that sweet smile on him for too long. Jongdae lives with the constant fear that he’s going to throw up on Joonmyun. That’ll make an impression.)  
  
"That sucks." Nudging the coffee even closer, Zitao sighs. "Is there anything I can do to help?"  
  
"Not really." Jongdae takes the coffee between both hands and sips it. It’s just the way he likes it. Zitao always remembers. That’s why Jongdae is nicer to Zitao than he is to everyone else. "It’s just homework and singing and singing and homework. And Jongin hasn’t been home in a few days, so feeding myself occasionally." Jongdae chuckles because it makes him feel better to laugh at everything.  
  
"Things will be better when you graduate, right?"  
  
Jongdae isn’t so sure of that. While it has never been his dream to work at Everland forever, it does add an excitement to his life he doesn’t get anywhere else. After he finishes his last two classes, in January, he’ll have a boring degree and he’ll probably get a boring job, and he’ll come home from work everyday and have nothing to talk about with anyone because his life is boring. He’ll have plenty of time to watch television and see the people he auditioned with in high school perform on music shows. Maybe if he watches them enough he’ll become immune to the creeping sense of inadequacy.  
  
At least money won’t be as tight. It will be easier to look after Jongin, if he makes more money and doesn’t have to spend it all on tuition.  
  
"My life is depressing. Let’s talk about yours."  
  
Zitao groans and falls forward onto the table. Jongdae is glad he hasn’t set his coffee back down because it would have sloshed out of the cup with the force of Zitao’s weight. "Mine is also depressing."  
  
"Tell your hyung all about it."  
  
Zitao peeks up through his hair. He’s really fucking cute, like, all the time. Jongdae winks at him, and Zitao frowns, which is not what Jongdae expected in response.  
  
"I want to," says Zitao, "but I’m kind of worried."  
  
"Worried about what?" Jongdae drinks from his coffee again. The hot liquid sliding down his throat feels nice since he’s been sitting in the air conditioning so long today.  
  
"That you won’t like me as much anymore." Zitao is nibbling on his lower lip.  
  
"Not going to happen," Jongdae says. "Unless you killed a man." He stops. "Did you kill a man, Huang Zitao?"  
  
"What if I did?" Zitao says, relaxing a fraction.  
  
"Then why the hell wasn’t it Byun Baekhyun?" replies Jongdae, not missing a beat. "He makes my life so hard."  
  
"You love Baekhyun-hyung, though." Zitao sits up again completely, before looking left and right to make sure no one is listening to their conversation. "I kind of…" He rubs at his arms. "There’s someone I…  _like_." He emphasizes the ‘like’. Jongdae knows exactly what he means.  
  
"And this is supposed to make me look at you differently, how?" Jongdae sets the coffee down to give Zitao his full attention.  
  
"It’s Sehun from our Linear Algebra class," Zitao says quietly, and Jongdae licks at his lips.  
  
"Oh," he says. "But Sehun’s…" Sehun has this funny way of talking and is always accidentally doing aegyo and wrinkles his nose up when he laughs. He looks like someone’s pet kitten and Jongdae shouldn’t be surprised that Zitao’s into that.  
  
Jongdae hadn’t known that Zitao was into boys, though, so it’s still somewhat a surprise. His hands feel sweaty, and a part of him is wondering if he’s supposed to admit something back. Maybe he’s supposed to tell Zitao about how much he wishes Kim Joonmyun would kiss him on the cheek and hold his hand, like he’d seen him do with his girlfriend back in high school, as Jongdae had tried very hard not to notice.  
  
Zitao’s shoulders are drooping. "I know," he says. "A guy." He cocks his head to the side. "Is that… an issue?"  
  
"I was going to say Sehun’s got the strangest hair, actually," Jongdae quickly answers. "I hadn’t really considered the other thing. Is that supposed to matter to me?" He strains for nonchalance, even though Zitao’s face is lighting up. He feels like a big fraud for not telling Zitao right now that…  
  
He’s being crushed in a hug. "Thank you," whispers Zitao into Jongdae’s hair. "Thank you."  
  
"For what?" Then he’s reluctantly squirming free, because time is ticking and Jongdae has another class to survive. "I wish you luck with your rainbow kitten, I guess."  
  
Zitao sparkles at him like a comic book heroine. Jongdae pats himself on the back for a good handling of the situation.  
  
"I wish you luck, too," Zitao says. "With your double rehearsals."  
  
"Noooooo," Jongdae moans. "Don’t remind me."  
  
"What’s the new guy like, anyway?" Zitao asks, and Jongdae wills himself not to flush.  
  
"He’s great," says Jongdae vaguely, and puts in great effort not to think about how much he’ll have to look in Joonmyun’s eyes during their first rehearsal together after classes.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
The first time he sees Joonmyun in costume, that afternoon, Jongdae decides that his life is just inevitably unfair. Joonmyun looks… really good in his costume. Like he’s a legit faerie prince and not just some dork in a costume pretending to be one.  
  
"Does it look all right?" Joonmyun asks.  
  
"You look fantastic," Jongdae says, bleakly. Then Baekhyun is barging in, holding cotton candy with one hand and zipping his pants up with the other, and Jongdae pins his gaze on his untied shoelaces.  
  
Joonmyun has apparently been learning the ropes all day. He’s taken to Everland with a sort of childlike delight. He loves all the horribly cheesy names for things and he likes all the silly traditions, and being around him is making Jongdae wonder if he’s been missing out on all the joy this job has to offer.  
  
"I’m glad you think so," Joonmyun whispers into Jongdae’s ear, as Baekhyun starts telling them all about some little kid that Kyungsoo can’t seem to get to let go of his hand in European Adventure. Jongdae shivers in his velvet jacket at the sound of Joonmyun’s voice.  
  
They run lines together, and Jongdae is not tired. He can’t be. Joonmyun is extremely enthusiastic, constantly leaning closer to Jongdae to ask for clarifications. It has Jongdae’s nerves on end. He’s usually a fairly touchy person himself, never shy about hugging Baekhyun or Zitao or Jongin or even Lu Han. He pokes Kris in the non-existent ass with a demanding finger when he wants his attention, and regularly invites and then dodges Chanyeol’s hugs just to make a fool of him. But Joonmyun’s touch makes him all… mushy inside. Like a bunch of wriggly earthworms or something gross like that.  
  
It leaves him uncharacteristically jumpy, and witty retorts to Baekhyun’s really dumb insults seem a second too slow on Jongdae’s lips.  
  
Before he knows it, it’s closing time, and Jongdae and Joonmyun are guiding straggling families out of the main gates toward the parking lot. One little girl starts to cry, exhausted but not wanting the day to be over, so Jongdae sings her a bit of the Summer Princess song, until she’s smiling and burying her face in her grateful mother’s neck.  
  
When they finally leave, Joonmyun is watching him thoughtfully.  
  
"In high school, I never knew your voice was so pretty," Joonmyun says, when it’s just them, standing in front of the Fable House. Joonmyun’s small hand seems fascinated with the plastic flowers that wind up the cobblestone walls. "Back then, you never sang loud enough for me to notice." His fingers are warm through Jongdae’s sleeve.  
  
Velvet in the summer is an awful idea, now that Jongdae is trying to think about anything but how close Joonmyun is sitting.  
  
"I didn’t know myself in high school," Jongdae says. "I didn’t want you to notice me."  
  
"But I did," says Joonmyun. That kind smile. Jongdae tries to clear his eyes by rapidly blinking, but it just emphasizes the way the night lights of the park catch in Joonmyun’s eyelashes. "Do you know yourself, now?"  
  
 _In some ways_ , would be the appropriate answer. He knows his limitations, at least. "I know all my lines," Jongdae responds slyly. "Do you?"  
  
"Touché." Joonmyun laughs, nudging Jongdae with his elbow. "I know most of them."  
  
"Are you sure?" This is safer ground. "So after the Winter Prince casts his spell, and we’re trapped in the mirror world of his design, what do we do?"  
  
"We have to find the three keys!" Joonmyun is so  _tickled_  by Yixing’s fairy tale. " _My faithful friend, how are we going to find three keys before the clock strikes midnight?_ "  
  
"My prince," Jongdae replies, biting his lips briefly before reaching out and pulling gently at Joonmyun’s wing. "Did not the Winter Prince give us clues?"  
  
"One where the flowers bloom most profusely, another in the wilds where the beasts roam free, and the third where the waters rush fastest…"  
  
"One can only imagine," Jongdae tries to channel the pompousness of his character, "that the Rose Garden is where we should seek our first key, Your Highness?"  
  
Joonmyun taps his chin with a single finger, and opens his mouth to reply, before his eyes widen and he starts to laugh. "I’ve forgotten the next line," he admits.  
  
"You remembered a lot in only a couple of days." Jongdae smiles deviously. "You might even be able to spare poor Hyunsik his trials next weekend."  
  
"He looks so beleaguered!" Joonmyun crosses his arms. "Acting is supposed to be fun!" He squeezes his own biceps. "Why do it if it’s not fun?"  
  
Somewhere along the line, Jongdae had forgotten this was all supposed to be fun, but he has a sneaking suspicion Joonmyun is going to make that harder to forget. "We all have our own reasons, seonbae."  
  
Joonmyun frowns. On the cusp of speaking, Lu Han interrupts him. "Joonmyun? Yixing would like to speak with you."  
  
"Oh? Right, yes, I’m coming." He looks at Jongdae apologetically. "Sorry, I guess duty calls." He actually looks like he regrets ending their conversation, and Jongdae is… No. Jongdae is unaffected, because Jongdae is an adult and it doesn’t matter if they’re wearing wings, this isn’t some fantasy in his head.  
  
Batting his eyelashes, he pretends it’s Baekhyun he’s talking to. "Don’t pine for me too much, okay?"  
  
Joonmyun laughs loudly, his whole face brightening. Jongdae can’t breathe. "I’ll do my best." He winks, and Jongdae’s rib cage feels like the bars on the polar bear cages in Zootopia. His heart, of course, is one of the polar bears.  
  
Lu Han and Jongdae are left behind in front of the house, Lu Han tapping his foot repeatedly. "Minseok asked me to make sure you’ve been eating," he says.  
  
Minseok is Lu Han’s best friend. He and Jongdae had been the only Koreans in their Chinese history class a few years ago. Jongdae had corralled Lu Han into attending Minseok’s graduation with him because Jongin had been busy, and the two of them had hit it off famously over drinks that night. Jongdae had been pleased, even if outwardly he’d just made not-so-subtle references to that Jay Park bromance video.  
  
So it’s feasible that Minseok is worried about Jongdae. But Lu Han is shuffling his feet and seems far too fascinated by the lights going out one by one on the other side of the park. "Minseok asked you, huh?"  
  
"You know Minseok," Lu Han says. "Always worried about people. Even though you’re tough as nails and would probably say something if you needed help, you know?" Lu Han’s glittery eye make-up sparkles.  
  
"You can tell Minseok I’ll be fine once our new Summer Prince gets settled in and finals are over." And he and Jongin survive his nephew’s one-year ceremony, with all that entails. And if Jongdae can put off calling his parents a little longer. "So he doesn’t have to worry."  
  
"Good," Lu Han says. "I’ll let him know you’re doing fine then." Lu Han scratches his balls again, breaking the moment, and Jongdae’s laugh is more like a bark. "By the way…" He squints. "You know your part, this year… in the show? Yixing wrote it for you. So no one else could do it." Jongdae hadn’t known that. "So don’t keel over before the end of Summer Splash, kid."  
  
"You got it," Jongdae says, bewilderedly scratching at his face. His hand comes away white, and he grimaces. "Time to clean up, Jongdae."  
  
He’s relieved not to run into Joonmyun in the locker room. He only has to deal with a half-naked Baekhyun yelling enthusiastically into his cell phone at his girlfriend of the week about eating pork belly at midnight, which is so excruciatingly normal it restores balance to his off-kilter evening.  
  
He catches Kris on the way out. "I need the day off on the sixth," he tells him, and Kris nods. "Can I take it?" Jongdae hates the part of him that wants Kris to say it’s impossible, so he can keep himself and Jongin home. But it’s a small part of him that’s easily quieted by Kris’s easy nod.  
  
"You never take time off," Kris says. "Of course you can."  
  
One thing off his checklist, at least.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
Jongin massages his shoulders. "Hyung, go to bed."  
  
"Just a few more questions," Jongdae replies. "Then bed." He would’ve finished faster if he could stop thinking about Joonmyun’s eyes. "I took the day off for Hyunsu’s  _dol_ , by the way."  
  
High school was a long time ago. So why does Jongdae feel like he’s stuck there all over again?  
  
"You keep sighing." Jongin’s hands are lulling Jongdae into a twilight sleep.  
  
Maybe that’s why the next words slip unbidden from his mouth. "Kim Joonmyun is the new guy at work."  
  
Jongin’s hands stop, and Jongdae wakes up. "Joonmyun-seonbaenim from high school?" Jongin asks, and Jongdae nods. He narrows his eyes at the next question in his textbook. "Um."  
  
"It’s not a big deal. It was just a shock."  
  
Jongin’s noise is skeptical. "Not a big deal? You were so—" He stops, and Jongdae, with trepidation, spins to look at him.  
  
"So what?"  
  
"Nothing," Jongin says. "It’s nothing, hyung." So Jongdae’s suspicions about Jongin knowing more than Jongdae’s told him are probably true. It’s still easier for Jongdae to deal with if they don’t talk about it, though.  
  
"Anyway, I just have two more questions." Jongdae rubs at his eyes. "Then I’m going to bed."  
  
"I’ll leave you to it, then," Jongin says. Then, more quietly, "I’m sorry you have to work so hard."  
  
"Shut up and sleep," Jongdae says. "What are you sorry for? Didn’t you make me a job offer? I have to get my degree to take it."  
  
Jongin disappears off to bed, leaving Jongdae to contemplate the upcoming two weeks with a sense of dread that’s only worsened by the flop of his stomach every time he thinks about Kim Joonmyun.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"Jongdae, would you mind running lines with me?" Joonmyun asks on Tuesday afternoon. Jongdae is still kind of rocked by the way Joonmyun had come to work this afternoon, wearing a suit and claiming he’d had a ‘family luncheon’. It had fit nicely at the shoulders, and it had reminded Jongdae of the way his uniform blazer had fit. Like Joonmyun was the model they’d designed the damn thing to flatter.  
  
"I don’t mind at all," Jongdae says.  
  
Baekhyun looks at Jongdae speculatively. "Who is this person that comes to work with your face these days?" he asks loudly enough that a parent turns to look at them, her arms full of toddler. He waves his hands apologetically, smiling to show each and every white tooth, and Jongdae watches her melt with disgust.  
  
"It’s repulsive to me that she thinks you’re remotely sweet," says Jongdae, and Baekhyun smirks.  
  
"I am sweet."  
  
"Only because cotton candy runs through your veins. It’s got nothing to do with your temperament."  
  
"At least I can pretend to be nice." Baekhyun scrunches his nose and does something cutesy with his hands. "That’s why I always have dates and you never have even one."  
  
Jongdae forces himself not to be embarrassed as Joonmyun looks at him.  _Thanks, Baekhyun,_  he thinks.  _Now Joonmyun can be totally sure I’m a loser._  
  
"It could be," Joonmyun says, "that Jongdae is a tad more… selective." Joonmyun’s face doesn’t change, still smiling neutrally, and both Baekhyun and Jongdae stare at him for a moment before Jongdae cracks up.  
  
"There you have it, hyung," says Jongdae, and Baekhyun glares.  
  
"You’ve brainwashed him already. Now I see why you’re so willing to practice lines. It’s all part of your secret plot to turn him to your cause."  
  
"Oh, is that why you’ve had me chanting ‘Baekhyun is the enemy’ at regular intervals, Jongdae? I thought that was part of the script." He winks, and Jongdae licks his lips and tries to keep the thread of the conversation as his insides quiver.  
  
"It is part of the script," Jongdae says. "Trust me, seonbae."  
  
Joonmyun’s mouth slips into that tiny frown again, but he doesn’t say anything as Baekhyun distracts them both by whistling low. "Babe at four o’clock," he says. "Such legs!"  
  
"Why is she wearing high heels at an amusement park?" She is pretty. She’s totally Baekhyun’s type, too. If ‘way too good for him’ is a type.  
  
"You’re just mad because she’s taller than you," says Baekhyun, before he’s off in pursuit of winning her number while wearing a pink ribboned costume. The worst part is that he’ll probably get it, and be insufferable for the rest of the evening until Chanyeol sinks claws into him.  
  
"Lines?" Jongdae says lightly, pulling a bubble wand and bubble soap out of his pocket so he can blow bubbles at the cluster of children waiting to get on the Dragon Coaster.  
  
They laugh and try to clap down on the bubbles, jumping up to get the ones that float too high as their chaperone smiles indulgently. Jongdae blows another gust of them before he wanders away, leading Joonmyun with him.  
  
"It seems more relaxed here on weekdays, when there are no shows." Joonmyun clasps his hands. "It’s so delightful?" Joonmyun is so taken with everything. He looks like one of the kids.  
  
"It’s easier," Jongdae says. "Then we’re more like moving set pieces than actors, which is less exhausting." He can feel the sweat on his neck. He’ll have to touch up his make-up soon. He and Chanyeol sweat the most. Joonmyun looks like he barely feels the heat, even in his heavy lavender and white ensemble. "Which part are you having trouble with?"  
  
"It’s right before we rescue the Summer Princess," Joonmyun says. "After we get the third key from the end of the Amazon Express."  
  
Jongdae summons the scene in his mind. "It’s only a few lines." He takes a breath. "My Prince! You have to hurry! We need to get all three keys to Aesop’s Fable House to unlock the door! There are only minutes left!"  
  
"What will I do if my princess is lost forever?" Joonmyun says. "What if we’re too late!"  
  
"We will be if you don’t trust in your own heart, Your Highness!" Jongdae resists rolling his eyes as he speaks. Cheesy. Yixing is full of lines like that.  
  
"That’s where I keep forgetting the line," Joonmyun says. "I know it has something to do with the princess, but…"  
  
"You say  _I trust in my love for the Summer Princess_ ," Jongdae says. " _And I will rescue my beautiful bride from the clutches of the Winter Prince!_ "  
  
"And then I just have that scene with Chanyeol in front of the Castle of Oz."  
  
"And the scene with Krystal at the Fable House before we stage the faerie wedding in front of the Magic Tree." Jongdae blows more bubbles, watching as they nestle in a couple of teenage girls’ permed ponytails. They squeal and pretend they aren’t just as excited by them as the children had been earlier.  
  
"Oh right," Joonmyun says. "I forgot about that."  
  
"How could you forget about the kiss scene?" Jongdae teases, eyes going up to follow the descent of the T-Express as it goes down its first dip. The passengers all have their hands in the air as they scream. It mimics the fall of Jongdae’s stomach.  
  
"Hmmm," Joonmyun replies. "I suppose I was more worried about other scenes." He grins. "That one will be easy, right?"  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says. "Wouldn’t be too hard to kiss Krystal Jung." He tries to muster the expression Jongin has when he watches that Lee Hyori commercial, but it feels unnatural on his face.  
  
"No," Joonmyun says, plucking at one of the gold buttons of his costume thoughtfully. "I guess it wouldn’t be."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"It’s like someone put drugs in your coffee," Kyungsoo informs him on Wednesday afternoon. "You’re so jittery." They both have the afternoon-only shift tonight. Kyungsoo has some kind of rehearsal for his choir on Wednesday mornings, and Jongdae has accounting. "Which makes me never want to drink the coffee in Kris’s office ever again."  
  
"It tastes like chalk, anyway. I bet Kris makes it."  
  
"I know he does," Kyungsoo says. "But desperation is the fall of many a man."  
  
"You poor thing," Jongdae says. "Forced to drink Kris Wu’s coffee."  
  
"My lot in life." Kyungsoo’s ruffled sleeves shake with his laughter. He looks like a walking advertisement for the On the Border at COEX. "Oh, hey, Jongdae, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something."  
  
"Like what?" Jongdae asks. "If it’s part of Chanyeol’s plan to stage an intervention for Baekhyun’s cotton candy problem I’ve already said I don’t want to be a part of that."  
  
"No," Kyungsoo says. Then he hesitates. "It’s an audition."  
  
Jongdae frowns. "An audition?"  
  
"For a musical," Kyungsoo carries on. "Nothing huge, but it would be something good on your resume. I was just thinking you might be interested."  
  
"Why would I be interested? I’m going to be an accountant."  
  
"And that’s a waste of your voice," Kyungsoo says. "They need multiple roles. We wouldn’t actually be auditioning against each other for the same type of part."  
  
"I don’t know, Kyungsoo…"  
  
"Sign ups for the open audition don’t close for another week or so." Kyungsoo closes his locker with finality. "Think about it."  
  
"I don’t—"  
  
Kyungsoo pins him with a stare that makes him feel sliced open like a frog in biology class. "Yes, you do," Kyungsoo says. "Because you might not love this job but when you’re singing and people are clapping, you’re happy. That’s what makes you happy."  
  
"I don’t do so well at auditions," Jongdae says, and Kyungsoo shakes his head. "I don’t like them. They scare me."  
  
"This isn’t the idol flesh market," he replies, with an understanding tone. He doesn’t understand though, so it doesn’t reassure Jongdae in the slightest. "This is a whole different game."  
  
"We’ll see," Jongdae says. "Kyungsoo, I don’t know. I’ve got finals and things with Jongin are—There’s a lot going on right now, and I don’t want…" Jongdae doesn’t want to put himself on the line right now. He’s finally started to accept his extremely average life and he doesn’t want to tiptoe back out to where there might be more, because if he doesn’t get it…  
  
"It’s so tense in here," Joonmyun says. "Are you fighting?"  
  
"Fighting takes too much energy," Kyungsoo says.  
  
"Energy Kyungsoo could better use to write my name hatefully a hundred times in his Death Note," Jongdae agrees, forcing a grin.  
  
"It’s a journal," Kyungsoo says. "And I only have to write your name once if I use red ink."  
  
Jongdae laughs, and puts auditions out of his mind.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"Thanks for having me over," Zitao says, peering around the apartment. It's cleaner than usual, but that's because Jongdae took all of his and Jongin's copious amounts of stuff, threw it haphazardly into Jongin's room and closed the door. Jongin is doing some cooking thing that has him working around the clock right now, so Jongdae can clean it up before he comes home. He'd mumbled vaguely, sleepily, about croissants and how it's a two day process as he zombie-walked out of the door this morning even earlier than Jongdae, letting Jongdae shove a banana into his hand and a soda into his bag before he left.  
  
"I thought it might be easier to study here," Jongdae admits. "I'm short on time, too."  
  
"I know," Zitao says, ruffling Jongdae's hair. "I don't mind, hyung."  
  
"I didn't think you would," Jongdae replies. "Can I get you something to drink?"  
  
"Nope," he says, following Jongdae into the kitchen and dropping his bag in the middle of the floor. "Let's just get started." Then he hums. "Hey, what's this?"  
  
Jongdae, who'd been pouring himself sweet tea, looks over his shoulder to see Zitao holding that damn flier. He'd found it in his locker at closing on Wednesday night. Kyungsoo must have left it in there before he left, the sly bastard. It's for that silly audition that Jongdae isn't going to go to. When’s he supposed to prepare for it, anyway? It's the same day as Jongin's nephew's  _doljanchi_ , besides. Jongdae would have to somehow get from the auditions to the ceremony in like, an hour, and that's only if the auditions ended on time. He's got better things to do than set himself up for rejection. To set himself up for…  
  
"Just some audition Kyungsoo is doing."  
  
"Are you doing it, hyung?"  
  
"No," replies Jongdae.  
  
"Why not?" Zitao sits down at the table. He digs in his designer bag for his textbook, even though Jongdae's got his out already. "I've never heard you sing, but everyone says you're pretty good."  
  
"Who is everyone?" Jongdae asks jokingly. "I'm not that good, or I wouldn't be going to school for accounting."  
  
"Jongin says you used to want to be an idol."  
  
"That was a long time ago, Zitao."  
  
"You act like you're forty right now instead of twenty-two. A long time ago is what, four years?"  
  
"Why is your Korean only this good when you're harassing me?" He gulps his tea. "Let's study. These finals aren't going to be as easy for me as they will be for you."  
  
"That's because I'm meant to deal with money," Zitao says, flashing his designer watch. "Maybe you're meant to do something else?"  
  
"Life lessons from the man who wants to date the rainbow kitten in the front row of class." Jongdae pokes Zitao's calf with his big toe. "Perhaps you'll be so distracted we'll be on equal footing for the exam, after all."  
  
"I'm going to ask him out," Zitao says. "But only, um, after finals, so if he says no I never have to see him again."  
  
"Okay, lover boy, hit me with the equation to find an eigenvector."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"Thanks for coming out with me." Jongin is still exhausted, and there’s flour trapped under his nails. "I know you don’t actually have the time."  
  
"I do have to get on the bus in about an hour or I’ll be late for work," warns Jongdae. "So don’t be too indecisive."  
  
"I just need help to pick a ring," Jongin says. "I don’t know anything about rings."  
  
"And I look like I do?" Jongdae sighs. "You should have asked Zitao, when you were telling him about all the auditions I failed in high school."  
  
Jongin stumbles before righting himself. "I didn’t tell him about that stuff." He winces. "Any of it. Just that you used to want to be a professional singer. He was worried about you. And curious about your job."  
  
"I shouldn’t have introduced you to each other," Jongdae says. "I am filled with regret."  
  
"Zitao’s nice." Jongin shrugs. "He really cares about you."  
  
"Zitao really cares about the spiders that get drowned during the rainy season, though. Zitao cares about an ice cream cone someone dropped on the other side of the world. He probably thinks about its feelings."  
  
"Unless it’s wronged him," Jongin says. "He’s discerning. He’s just nice."  
  
"Who’s been teaching you big words?" Jongdae asks, and Jongin pouts. "I’ve never been to a one-year ceremony in my whole life. Let’s get a plain ring to give."  
  
"My parents are going to judge whatever I get," Jongin says. "They already know I don’t have a lot of money." His face crumples into a worried mush, like a wet paper bag, and Jongdae hates it.  
  
"You’re not going for your parents. You’re going despite them." He pats Jongin’s arm gingerly. "You’re going for your sister and your baby nephew, who love you a lot." He sighs. "Well, the baby might not really actually know who you are yet, and he might actually have taste when he gets older, so he may never love you, but your sister, the poor thing, she doesn’t know any better."  
  
"You’re the best, hyung," Jongin says, and he’s smiling again. "Even if you’re trying to be mean again."  
  
"I am mean," Jongdae says. "And heartless. Accept it."  
  
"Heartless people wouldn’t have freeloaders like me hanging around," Jongin says. "I’m going to make this up to you someday." Jongin only gets a small stipend with his scholarship. Jongdae pays for everything else. It’s fine, because Jongin helps Jongdae out in other ways. And also Jongin is Jongdae’s best friend and that counts for a lot. He’d been there during the lower points in Jongdae’s life. Friends are supposed to help each other out.  
  
"I’m counting on it," Jongdae says.  
  
As Jongin peruses the collection of small gold rings, looking for the right one to give to his baby nephew, Jongdae tactfully double-checks the front pocket of his backpack, making sure the notification about their rent rising next month is tucked away so that Jongin doesn’t find out. Jongdae can afford it, especially with all the overtime in the summer. And then it’ll be only a few months before he graduates, and it’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine, it always is.  
  
"What about this one, hyung?" The thin gold band is flecked with tiny embedded chips of precious gems.  
  
"I think it’s a good choice," Jongdae says, and Jongin’s pleased expression is worth cutting it close for work.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"Happy Friday," Jongdae says to an uncaring audience when he walks into Kris’s office to say hello. He doesn’t find Kris there, though. Instead he finds Chanyeol and Baekhyun arguing about nothing, bickering like an old married couple as they search. "What’s wrong?"  
  
"This dumbass lost the prop keys," Baekhyun says. "The ones we use for the show  _every weekend._  
  
"Whatever," says Chanyeol. "Those keys are small and at least I don’t lose the clothes off my body on a regular basis."  
  
"No, you just lose  _really important set pieces_. Wow, Chanyeol, you’re so right, you are so much better than I am."  
  
"At least you’re finally acknowledging it," Chanyeol says. "Your denial was really painful to watch."  
  
Jongdae takes a deep breath. "There is a spare set of the keys," he says. "In the locker room. We can use those until you find the lost ones. I’m not staying late tonight to look. I’m supposed to study tonight."  
  
Chanyeol and Baekhyun both look at Jongdae, chagrined. Baekhyun, who looks like he hasn’t had any cotton candy in hours, sighs. "Why is it only two o’clock?"  
  
"I just got here and I’m asking myself the same thing," Jongdae answers, before heading to the locker room to acquire the spare keys and get suited up.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
It’s really hot. Jongdae thinks there are probably nine-to-fivers making their way home right now to the promise of the weekend and air conditioning. He is momentarily jealous.  
  
Then he remembers it could be him next year, and the jealousy flees.  
  
Joonmyun shadows him closely, and Jongdae realizes that he must be nervous, what with the first show tomorrow.  
  
"You’re going to do fine, you know?" Jongdae says, trying not to make a big deal out of it. "If you mess up, Chanyeol and I have done this so many times we can cover for you."  
  
"I’m not—" Jongdae doesn’t look at him, but arches an eyebrow anyway. "Am I that transparent?" He’s holding a balloon, and a little boy is looking at it enviously from atop his father’s shoulders, so Joonmyun walks over and hands it to him, making sure to sprinkle some glitter when he does, to make the boy giggle.  
  
"Very transparent," says Jongdae. "Don’t worry so much."  
  
"I just…"  
  
"You don’t even have to act," Jongdae says. "You already act like a prince all the time."  
  
"Do I?" Joonmyun laughs, and Jongdae had  _not_  meant to say that out loud. "You’re sweet."  
  
"I’m really not," Jongdae says. "I’m only being nice because you’re new."  
  
"Oh, I have to work my way up the ladder to disrespectful nicknames and casual disregard?"  
  
"Exactly," says Jongdae. Without thinking, he brushes a piece of glitter off Joonmyun’s cheekbone, like he would if it were Lu Han standing next to him. Then he draws back quickly, realizing it’s too familiar, a little too late. "You have to earn it."  
  
"I’ll make it a goal," Joonmyun says. His throat bobs, and his tongue peeks out.  
  
Jongdae blows more bubbles.  
  
They pass the day in snippets of script as banter between them, Jongdae showing Joonmyun where kids like most to hide from their parents.  
  
When they find them, Joonmyun uses his silky tone to coax them out, and Jongdae just does his best not to swoon. Of course, he thinks, Joonmyun is an actual Prince Charming. The universe would accept nothing less in the quest to make Jongdae’s life ridiculously unfair.  
  
A while later, after quick dinners of turkey sandwiches, they’re back out into the early twilight. Joonmyun presents two three-year-old girls reluctant to head out with matching roses from the Rose Garden and promptly wins their hearts. Jongdae thinks he should start a club for people who’ve had their hearts stolen by Kim Joonmyun.  
  
Joonmyun has so many questions, about Laciun and the mythos, and Jongdae finds himself giving Joonmyun the same long, drawn out answers he’d give a pack of kids waiting in line for the Rotating House. Joonmyun’s eyes light up with interest and it’s… oh, it’s so cute, and Jongdae finds himself patting Joonmyun’s elbow or smiling at him too long.  
  
"Is there something in my teeth?" Joonmyun asks, once and Jongdae is mortified.  
  
"No," says Jongdae.  _It’s just that you’re exactly as wonderful as I thought you were._  
  
Before Jongdae knows it, it’s closing time. He’s never had a day pass so quickly before.  
  
"Hey, Jongdae?" Joonmyun asks. "Earlier today I saw some kids standing inside the Magic Tree on Main Street with their hands folded together."  
  
"Oh, yeah," Jongdae says. He faces Joonmyun. "It’s because of the wish."  
  
"The wish?" Joonmyun is puzzled.  
  
"Didn’t you ever come here as a kid?" Jongdae asks. "Like for your birthday, or…"  
  
Joonmyun shakes his head. "No." He looks rueful. "My parents weren’t… Well, why would they take us to a place like this when they could take us to a fancy restaurant and still have us home in time for hagwon?" His laugh is dry. The dark blue eyeshadow on his eyelids makes him look ethereal in the park’s nightlights, the bright glow from the carousel creating a sort of angelic outline around his wings.  
  
Jongdae swallows. "Maybe that’s why you’re such a big kid around the park now." He nudges Joonmyun with his elbow. "Denied childhood and all that."  
  
Joonmyun’s eyes shine. "Maybe." His hair is damp with sweat. He pushes it back with one hand, still looking at the tree. "So tell me about the wishes?"  
  
On impulse, Jongdae grabs Joonmyun’s hand. It’s as soft and warm as he’d imagined it would be. A long time ago. When he’d been prone to imagining. "I’ll show you," he says, pulling.  
  
Joonmyun does not resist, letting Jongdae drag him back to Main Street. The tree lights up blue at night, lovely against the dark sky, and with the park closed, it’s kind of… romantic.  
  
Jongdae pushes that thought aside. This is about showing Joonmyun a piece of his missed childhood, not Jongdae’s stupid crush that probably won’t ever go away. "We have to go inside," Jongdae says, and Joonmyun laughs.  
  
"I’m following your lead," he replies. Jongdae is still holding Joonmyun’s hand. Joonmyun doesn’t seem to mind. Jongdae keeps it, trying to memorize the softness of Joonmyun’s palm before it’s taken away.  
  
The hollow center of the tree would be a tight fit for Chanyeol or Kris, but it’s fine for Jongdae and Joonmyun, who can fit inside it shoulder to shoulder, and rest their hands on the fake insides of the tree that sparkle with glitter and faerie lights. "I always like it more at night," Jongdae says. "I always had to come here one last time as we were leaving."  
  
"I can see why," Joonmyun says. "It’s really lovely, and it must be even more so when you’re still a child."  
  
"I think you still see things like a child, sometimes," says Jongdae, without meaning to. He blushes, but it’s hidden here, even though they’re standing close enough that Jongdae can practically hear Joonmyun’s heartbeat.  
  
"Sorry about that."  
  
"No, no," Jongdae squeezes Joonmyun’s hand before finally letting go, "it’s nice. It’s one of your best qualities."  
  
"Really?" Joonmyun’s smile is audible. "My friends are always telling me that I’m too…"  
  
"You’re not," Jongdae says. "You’re fine just the way you are." He coughs, choking on embarrassment. "More than fine."  
  
"Thanks," replies Joonmyun. Soft, gentle. His voice is like a lullaby. Jongdae remembers, clearly, the first day of high school. Joonmyun had said hello and Jongdae’s heart had fallen into the pit of his stomach, like the T-Express right before the last drop.  
  
"When we were in high school," Jongdae says, "I swear you were the only person who could get me excited about extra practices before festivals. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been so upset."  
  
"Really?" Crinkling eyes are Jongdae’s greatest weakness, he decides.  
  
"You approached them like adventures," Jongdae tells him. "You were so enthusiastic about all the silly choreography and tasteless song choices that I couldn’t help but find them somewhat charming in the end." An awkward silence that’s probably only awkward for Jongdae.  
  
"Thank you," Joonmyun says. "My older brother told me all the time when I was growing up I was never going to be cool."  
  
"You made your own cool." And it would be rad if the snakes from Zootopia were around to eat him whole like Chanyeol is always threatening they will.  
  
"So tell me about wishes?" Joonmyun’s shoulder is warm against his.  
  
"Okay, so… Close your eyes," Jongdae says. Briefly, the Magic Tree seems actually alive, thrumming with energy. It is only Jongdae’s imagination. "In your head, you have to ask the Tree to make your wish come true."  
  
"What can I wish for?" Joonmyun whispers, like they’re working a real spell or something.  
  
"Anything at all," answers Jongdae. "Let’s wish together, okay?"  
  
"Okay," Joonmyun says, and in the darkness, he finds Jongdae’s hand again.  _It doesn’t mean anything, Jongdae,_  he tells himself.  _You remember high school. That’s just how he is._  "On the count of three?"  
  
"Sure," Jongdae says, and he closes his eyes. "One." Joonmyun’s fingers feel nice. Jongdae wants to forget about Jongin’s nephew’s  _doljanchi_ and the audition and his finals and the rising rent, just for now. It’s easy to, when Joonmyun’s hand is so silky smooth.  
  
"Two," Joonmyun says. Jongdae wants to hear Joonmyun talk more. He wants to have a whole day to hear Joonmyun talk. To take a day’s break from his life and just learn more about Joonmyun, because Joonmyun seems like such an amazing person and Jongdae has always thought so.  
  
"Three," Jongdae says, and before he can stop himself, he wishes he could take a time out from life and just… get to know Joonmyun. To grow closer to Joonmyun, even if it’s just as friends.  
  
It’s a ridiculous wish. You can’t take a time out from life. Jongdae knows that, just like he knows things don’t happen just because you want them enough. Joonmyun is as untouchable for Jongdae as the stars in the sky, even when he’s right next to him.  
  
They’re both quiet for a while. "Did you make your wish?" Joonmyun asks, breaking the silence.  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says. "I did." He licks his lips and drops Joonmyun’s hand again. "We should get changed or I’ll miss my bus."  
  
"I could give you a ride home?" Joonmyun asks.  
  
"You’re so nice," Jongdae says. "But no, it’s all right. I don’t live anywhere near you, I don’t think. It would be out of your way." He puts some finality in his voice.  
  
"I don’t mind," Joonmyun says anyway.  
  
"I won’t take advantage of you," Jongdae says firmly. "But I appreciate the offer."  
  
"You wouldn’t be…" Joonmyun stops. "Okay, then. Let’s go get cleaned up so you don’t miss your bus."  
  
"Right," Jongdae says, and he walks ahead of Joonmyun, trying to calm himself down. "I don’t want to miss my bus."  
  
He makes it, barely.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
Jongdae has three missed calls from his dad on the home answering machine because Jongin never answers the phone. Jongdae really should call them back, but it’s harder to talk to them, lately. Jongdae doesn’t know why, since things between them are better than ever, especially since Jongdae has succumbed to the inevitability of accounting. (Although, Jongdae thinks it might be some lingering resentment that they prefer him all worn down like this. When he lets himself think about it at all.)  
  
It’s also easy to avoid his parents’ calls since they don’t seem to understand the concept of cell phones and home phones, and it’s simple enough for Jongdae to say "I haven’t been home" if he’s asked why it took so long to ring them up.  
  
Jongin is asleep on the floor. In his hand is the small satin ring box from earlier. He still has flour under his nails. Cutest.  
  
Jongdae drapes a blanket over Jongin, stolen right off Jongin’s bed. Jongin shifts in his sleep.  
  
In the darkness, like this, Jongdae allows himself to remember the way Joonmyun’s hand had felt in his own. Just for a minute.  
  
Then he shakes himself for being silly, and goes into the kitchen to make himself coffee for the long night of studying ahead. He sees Kyungsoo’s stupid flier still sitting on the table, folded into the airplane Jongdae had made during the third hour of linear algebra studying. He unfolds it slowly and looks at it one last time.  
  
Jongdae has rent. He has finals. He has Jongin and these damn feelings and he doesn’t… he can’t prepare an audition, physically or mentally, especially not for that day of all days.  
  
He crumples the flier up into a ball and throws it into the trash. "Just start your review sheets, Jongdae," he says to himself. "No use fantasizing any more than you already have today."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
He wakes up for work in the morning feeling bleary-eyed. Jongin is still asleep on the floor right where Jongdae had left him, and the coffee machine won’t turn on. "Great," Jongdae says, stumbling out the door and barely remembering to grab his backpack.  
  
He just makes his bus, and when he gets off at his stop, the park seems even more eerie and abandoned than usual. Maybe the park is like one massive Kim Jongdae mood ring and it knows he’s particularly apathetic today.  
  
When he fishes out his jongin-anime-whatever key ring, undoing all three locks to the back entrance, the gate doesn’t squeak.  
  
That wakes Jongdae up.  
  
Nothing in the park is running. It’s dead quiet, and Jongdae feels like he has stepped out of reality and into an Indiana Jones movie. Soon, he thinks, the mummies are going to come out, and fuck, maybe Jongin’s been onto something with his zombie-survival books and weird tin-foil hats and it’s Jongdae who was the actual fool.  
  
The first noise he hears makes him squeak, and at Joonmyun’s chuckle, Jongdae can feel the slow drip of humiliation down his insides like machine-churned cart ice cream in August.  
  
"It’s just me," Joonmyun says. "Sorry to scare you. I got here early and no one’s here."  
  
"No one?" That’s extremely strange. Baekhyun is always here, munching on cotton candy and braying like a donkey in Chanyeol’s general direction, even at six AM. Jongdae glances at his watch. It seems to have stopped at six-fifteen, which is what it had read when he first walked in through the back gate. "Ugh, great, I need a new watch battery."  
  
Joonmyun digs into his pocket for his phone. "Huh," he says, and Jongdae leans closer to read the screen over his shoulder shamelessly, before remembering that this is  _Kim Joonmyun_  and he wears a sinfully attractive cologne every day. "My phone seems to have stopped, as well?"  
  
"Chanyeol watched a documentary on hauntings once," Jongdae says. "Super creepy. Mostly about how electricity levels in the air can make you _think_  there are ghosts or that something supernatural is happening, but really, it’s just like, sound waves or—"  
  
Joonmyun laughs, combing his fingers anxiously through the hair in front of his ears. "Sound waves stopped our clocks?"  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says. "Or something." He reaches out to grab Joonmyun’s arm, because his first impulse when he’s scared is always to cling, but as soon as his hand touches Joonmyun’s skin, the world is suffused in the most vibrant colors: reds, pinks, golds, and oranges, just like the Magic Tree in the fall.  
  
"Sound waves," he hears Joonmyun say, before he feels, wildly, like his feet are no longer on solid ground. He faintly repeats the mantra of the T-Express operators under his breath as he starts to fall.  _Fasten your seatbelts. Be mindful of the faeries, they’re up to no good! Keep your hands inside your car and hold on to any personal items you have not left behind. And enjoy the ride!_  
  
That’s when everything goes a bit fuzzy, then shifts back into a crystal clear image.  
  
Only, it’s not the same place it was moments ago. Or it is, but at the same time, everything has changed.  
  
"I don’t suppose this is some form of newbie hazing," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae gulps and tries not to pass out. Instead, he grips Joonmyun’s hand. It’s as warm as it was last night.  
  
"No," Jongdae says. "Lu Han would have just hidden your costume and replaced it with one two sizes too small."  
  
"Then it appears," Joonmyun says, "that we are in a  _situation._ "

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
Jongdae needs to calm down. He needs to take deep breaths and find some inner zen. It’s rather difficult, though, when the paved street under his feet has become grass up to his waist, and Joonmyun is standing in front of an extremely huge castle that bears little resemblance to the building that had been behind him before.  
  
The grass is tickling his calves. What the actual fuck. His mind is racing but he can’t seem to come to any conclusions.  
  
"What if Kyungsoo was right?" Jongdae says. "What if there  _were_  drugs in the coffee?"  
  
"What?" Joonmyun is looking around, enchanted. "I didn’t have any of the coffee. Did you?"  
  
Not today, but last night, Jongdae had caved and had some so he wouldn’t fall asleep on his way home. Now that he thinks about it, he had been feeling odd. He’d thought it was just butterflies in his stomach, but maybe Kris had finally poisoned him.  
  
"Seonbae-nim, amusement parks do not become real life!" Jongdae says it extra slow, in case Joonmyun is still in shock.  
  
"It’s hyung," Joonmyun says distractedly, touching the now very much alive blooms growing up the walls of the Castle of Oz. "Not seonbae. Hyung."  
  
Jongdae gulps, distracted now by how easily Joonmyun says that. Jongdae must be dreaming but... The grass still tickles and this all feels real.  
  
Joonmyun wants him to call him  _hyung_.  
  
"Okay," he says, and Joonmyun looks up at him and smiles. "Then, h-hyung, don’t you—"  
  
"Jongdae-yah," says Joonmyun, "isn’t this beautiful?" He pokes his index finger at a bloom and it unfolds at his touch.  
  
It is beautiful, and Jongdae clings to that in the sea of wild thoughts and disbelief. "Well,  _yes_ ," Jongdae says. "It is."  
  
"It feels like we’re in Laciun." Joonmyun moves his hand away from the castle wall, and all the flowers move toward him, as if missing him already.  
  
"But that’s  _impossible_ ," Jongdae says. "Hyung, that’s really  _impossible._ "  
  
Joonmyun gestures around him, and Jongdae follows the sweeping motion of his arm. Insects that look kind of animated buzz and flit from flower to flower, and everything seems larger than life. Then he looks back at Joonmyun, and if he squints, he can see, faintly… ever so faintly, the flit of transparent wings. They grow more solid before Jongdae’s eyes.  
  
"Lots of things seem impossible," says Joonmyun. "But clearly we’re both here right now."  
  
"Or I’m dreaming," Jongdae says. "Clearly,  _I’m dreaming._ "  
  
"Do I feature frequently in your dreams?" Playful.  _Not flirting, Jongdae. He’s not flirting._  And Jongdae is not going to dignify that with an answer. More accurately, he is not going to give an answer to save his dignity. "Jongdae, you have  _wings_."  
  
"So do you," Jongdae replies, even as he looks over his shoulder to examine them. They’re sky blue. Of course they are.  
  
"Well, why wouldn’t you have wings?" Suddenly there’s someone standing behind Jongdae, with hands on Jongdae’s hips. "Your Highness, we don’t have all this time to waste!"  
  
His voice is loud, so Jongdae gathers he’s speaking to Joonmyun, whose eyes have gone round like 500won cons.  
  
His voice is also familiar. Jongdae wants to see if the face matches it.  
  
He’s greeted with a shock of neon pink hair, bubblegum bright and pushed back from a forehead that is unmistakably his friend’s. "Lu Han-hyung?"  
  
"Who else would I be?" He steps back from Jongdae with a laugh before reaching down to adjust himself in his sheer cream pants. They ripple iridescent and otherworldly. "Jongdae, why aren’t you helping our prince? Time is ticking, and if you don’t hurry, the Winter Prince will win the wager and you’ll never be able to rescue the Summer Princess!"  
  
"There was definitely something in the coffee," Jongdae mutters to himself. "Something hallucinogenic."  
  
"Rescue… the Summer Princess?" Joonmyun’s eyebrows come together thoughtfully. "Is this some kind of guerilla-tactics rehearsal for the show?"  
  
"What show?" Another voice, from above. Jongdae and Joonmyun both look up the castle wall to the first open terrace, and Yixing is standing there, fingers strumming absently at a lute. "The princess has been kidnapped! There’s no time for a show!"  
  
"Hyung," Jongdae says, moving closer to Joonmyun even as Lu Han rests his chin on Jongdae’s shoulder, catching him in a back hug. "What is going  _on_?" His wings attempte to flutter agitatedly.  
  
"I have no idea," replies Joonmyun. He doesn’t sound nearly as upset as Jongdae. "But I think… I think we have to save the Summer Princess?"  
  
Jongdae snorts. "Krystal has a mean right hook, Joonmyun. She doesn’t need anyone to save her. I’d bet more money on her saving us."  
  
"And yet," Joonmyun curls his fingers one by one around Jongdae’s wrist, and he feels himself calming down at the steadiness in Joonmyun’s voice, "here we are, being told by not one, but two of our co-workers that there is a princess that needs saving." He laughs, and his thumb tickles at the inside of Jongdae’s wrist. "This  _is_  just like the Summer Splash show."  
  
"So we have to find the three keys?" Jongdae tries to pull the plot forward in his mind, but Joonmyun’s hand is distracting. He doesn’t want to pull free though, because even in his imagination things rarely feel that nice.  
  
"Exactly," Lu Han says. "Find the three magical keys, and free the Summer Princess from where she’s been locked up in Aesop’s Fable House by the Winter Prince."  
  
"I knew something was off when I woke up this morning," says Jongdae. "I should have called in sick." He swallows. "Can you call in sick for magical adventures?"  
  
"I doubt it." Joonmyun lets go of Jongdae to tug at the collar of his shirt. (And Jongdae is still wearing his shorts, for some reason, and Joonmyun is wearing long straight jeans and a brown leather belt and boat shoes that are not nearly concealed enough by the grass, and it’s actually really horribly attractive and now is not the time for him to notice. At least he’s not wearing his costume. There’s always that. He wishes there was some sign of his backpack, too, but it’s gone.) "I felt off this morning too. Not sick, but…"  
  
"Weird," Jongdae says. "Fuzzy."  
  
"Ever since…" He looks down, then, and the cut of his lashes along pale cheekbones is as mesmerizing as the blooming flowers around them.  
  
"Are you ill, Your Highness?" Lu Han asks. "There’s no time for that."  
  
"No!" Joonmyun says. "I’m not—That’s not what I—" He’s cute when he’s flustered. Jongdae needs to focus.  
  
"You only have until the clock strikes eleven," says Yixing, who plays a chord on his lute.  
  
"Until the clock strikes eleven," Lu Han repeats. "To find the three keys."  
  
The park closes at eleven. Jongdae wants to laugh. This is ridiculous.  
  
"But where are the three keys?" So now Joonmyun decides to look anxious, fiddling with a button on his pink shirt as he speaks. "Aren’t you going to help us?"  
  
"You know we can’t," Lu Han chides. "Your Highness, the mirror curse was only placed on you and Jongdae! Once you step out of this courtyard, you’re on your own!" He flaps his wings, and to Jongdae’s amazement, starts to hover. "Unless you manage to find your guards out there somewhere, of course."  
  
"Is this really happening?" Jongdae is fairly certain he shouldn’t feel the sun on his skin like this. That the grass shouldn’t be tickling at the backs of his knees. That the air shouldn’t smell so sweet. He’s never had a dream remotely like this, where everything is so tangible.  
  
"I think it is," says Joonmyun, meeting Jongdae’s eyes. There’s fear and concern there, but there’s also excitement.  
  
Joonmyun, he thinks again, can look at things in a way that makes Jongdae wonder if he’s been missing something lovely in it all along.  
  
It’s one of his best qualities, but right now, Jongdae would prefer some reassurance that  _haha, just kidding, this was all an elaborate practical joke_.  
  
"What are you waiting for?" Yixing asks. "Can’t you see time is of the essence?"  
  
"But how are we even supposed to know—"  
  
"Well," Jongdae says, pitching his voice like he does when he’s performing, holding Joonmyun’s gaze, "isn’t it obvious?"  
  
"One where the flowers bloom most profusely, another in the wilds where the beasts roam free, and the third where the waters rush fastest…"  
  
The words are clearer than the last time Joonmyun said them. He’s been practicing at home, obviously. Jongdae remembers seeing Joonmyun with his textbooks in high school, curled up at the bottom of the stairs trying to memorize terms for a Japanese test. He’d mouthed the words carefully, and Jongdae had watched him for a few moments before quietly leaving the stairwell. He bets Joonmyun had looked just like that when he was studying his script.  
  
"One can only imagine that the Rose Garden is where we should seek our first key, Your Highness?"  
  
"Then to the Rose Garden we go," says Joonmyun, as Lu Han flies up to stand next to Yixing on the terrace, curling arms around him just like he does in real life.  
  
"Is this going to be… dangerous?"  
  
"Probably," Joonmyun says. "But what’s the alternative? Being stuck here forever?"  
  
"I don’t know," Jongdae says. He wishes Lu Han and Yixing were more useful. Were his Yixing and Lu Han. His Lu Han, at least, would have a couple of answers. "But I can’t be stuck here forever." He has Jongin’s thing in a couple of weeks and finals to study for. He can’t get trapped in a magical world with Kim Joonmyun, even if he has no complaints about the company.  
  
"I could," Joonmyun says, licking his lips and stepping out away from the castle, arm pushing aside the high grass. He looks back over at Jongdae. "Are you coming?"  
  
"Where else am I going to go?" he asks, and Joonmyun smiles. Jongdae would follow him into an erupting volcano if he were smiling at him like that.  
  
And then they are clear of the grass, the wide road of what must be Main Street in front of them, and Yixing and Lu Han behind.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
Everland has never struck Jongdae as beautiful. There are parts of it that are lovely. The Magic Tree, glowing blue at night, or the Rose Garden, in the spring. Magic Land in the fall, when all the trees are tumbling from green to gold.  
  
But now, like this, everything once plastic to withstand time now vividly alive, Jongdae is mesmerized.  
  
"It’s all so vibrant," says Joonmyun. His shoes, the expensive kind with the designer print repeating across the body, are kicking up dust with each of his shuffling steps. "Much brighter than my old office."  
  
"I think Everland was already much brighter than anyone’s office." Jongdae’s own shoes, beat up shoes he’s had since high school, third year, kick up the dirt too. "Never thought I’d miss the hot concrete, but this dust hurts my eyes."  
  
"It’s probably only this dry in the summer," Joonmyun says. "I mean, if this place even exists when it’s not summer."  
  
"You should see Everland in the fall," Jongdae says. "I wonder what it would look like if it were all alive like this."  
  
"I used to look out my window at work and see nothing but more buildings and somber grays." Joonmyun crouches down and plucks a flower as big as his head. It’s an electric yellow. Each individual petal glows.  
  
"Where did you work?"  
  
"I worked at a law firm." Joonmyun laughs. "As an intern." He plucks one of the petals off the flower, murmuring something under his breath. "Making coffee not much better than Kris’s and filing paperwork and photocopying case briefings."  
  
"You want to be a lawyer someday?" Joonmyun is twenty-five. Someday should be pretty close to now, if he’d gone to school full time. Jongdae doesn’t know.  
  
"No," says Joonmyun. "My parents want me to be a lawyer someday. My brother is a lawyer." He plucks a second petal. "A really successful one. He went to Sogang."  
  
Jongdae knew that. Everyone in high school had known that. "My sister is a consultant." Joonmyun nods. "What do you want to do?"  
  
"Right now?" Joonmyun pulls the last petal off. "Work at an amusement park and make wishes inside magic trees."  
  
Jongdae is startled into a laugh. "Well, it looks like all your dreams are coming true!"  
  
"Hmm." Another petal falls, and then another. Joonmyun’s thumb smoothes along each petal before he pulls it out. "What about you?"  
  
"I’m going to school for accounting."  
  
Even the sun seems brighter now, bigger in the sky. Jongdae doesn’t look at it directly, because that would hurt, but instead he takes in the wide stretch of sky above them, free of buildings and smog and planes.  
  
"That’s not what I asked."  
  
"My best friend Jongin wants to be a chef," Jongdae says. "Open his own restaurant." Joonmyun pulls out another petal. It floats to the ground slowly, caught in a tiny gust of wind. "Sometimes when he talks about it I realize I don’t have that kind of dream anymore."  
  
"But you used to?" One petal left now. Joonmyun is smiling at it.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Effeuiller la marguerite," Joonmyun replies.  
  
"What does that…" Joonmyun’s mysterious smile makes him swallow back the question. He doesn’t speak… whatever that was. He has more than passable English and mediocre Mandarin Chinese, and that’s more than enough to get him through his day. "What language is that?"  
  
"You didn’t answer my question." Joonmyun plucks that last petal and then lets the stem fall from his hand. He keeps that last petal, though, and Jongdae wonders what it means.  
  
"I didn’t want to," says Jongdae, finally. "It’s not my dream  _now_. I’ve given up on impractical things."  
  
"Twenty-two is way too young to give up on impractical things," says Joonmyun. It’s like he’s giving one of his speeches in high school, reassuring the first years that even if they mess up, they’ll have two more years to attempt perfection. "Maybe we’re here because the universe wanted to teach you that there’s still… I don’t know, possibility."  
  
"Then why would you be here?"  
  
"Maybe," Joonmyun says, caressing the petal with a gentle thumb, a soft smile on his lips, "it wanted to teach me, too."  
  
"But—" Jongdae tilts his chin up. "What’s that noise?" It’s loud, super loud. Jongdae’s unsure how they missed it before, but he’s also unsure how he somehow sprouted wings or why he’s on a quest for three magical keys.  
  
"The buzzing? It’s getting… Jongdae!" Jongdae follows Joonmyun’s eyes and gasps.  
  
"Would you pay attention!" screeches a voice from behind them, and Jongdae doesn’t look away from the something large and winged barreling toward him. It’s grotesque, with huge wings and huge eyes and even huger teeth. It actually looks like-- "Duck, asshole!"  
  
And then Jongdae is pushed down by something else, splayed on the road, dust flying into his eyes and mouth as he’s overwhelmed with the scent of cotton candy. He closes his eyes to protect them from the grit. "Baekhyun-hyung?"  
  
"Ugh, Jongdae, you have to look out for the prince when Kyungsoo and I aren’t here!" And then he’s gone from atop of Jongdae, and in a few moments, the buzzing noise stops, leaving a silence around them that’s filled only with heavy breathing.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"You were attacked by one of the Winter Prince’s minions," Kyungsoo says, and Jongdae sits up and opens his eyes, rubbing at them with the back of his hands to clear them. He blinks three times, and Baekhyun’s face comes into focus. His eyes are lined with thick black, and he’s grinning at Jongdae cheerfully, lips stained blue from cotton candy.  
  
"My wings hurt." Jongdae timidly flutters them, shocked when they respond to his mental command. Joonmyun gasps, and Jongdae looks over at him to see him moving his own wings in delight.  
  
"Better that than being decapitated," Baekhyun says, before making a thoughtful noise. "Although I might have preferred you like that. Less of your smartassery." He plucks at Jongdae’s shirt. "What are you wearing?"  
  
"What are  _you_  wearing?" Jongdae turns the tables, because Baekhyun, for once, looks pretty comfy in his ribbon jacket.  
  
"Jongdae, I expect more diligence from you," Baekhyun says. "You can’t let minions stop the prince from rescuing his  _bride_." The emphasis on bride might be in Jongdae’s imagination, but it makes his insides shudder anyway. He doesn’t get to be jealous, he reminds himself. Especially not over something ridiculous like a magical princess that he is probably hallucinating.  
  
Jongdae is even pathetic and pining in his imagination.  
  
He stands up, dusting off his shorts. "I know, I know."  
  
Kyungsoo pats his arm consolingly. Jongdae’s mind briefly veers to that damn audition, before Baekhyun’s fingers pulling on his ear for attention bring him back to the present. "Where are you headed?"  
  
"To the Rose Garden." Joonmyun moves closer to Jongdae. It takes Jongdae a second to realize Joonmyun’s checking him over for injury.  
  
(It had happened before, once. Jongdae doubts Joonmyun remembers. Jongdae had been clumsy and tripped in the hall, one shoe flying down the corridor and his books breaking his fall.  
  
"Why aren’t you in class?" Joonmyun had asked, and Jongdae’s words had gotten stuck in his throat and tried to slowly asphyxiate him.  
  
"I’m—"  
  
Joonmyun’s hand had slid up his leg and squeezed his knee. "Are you hurt?")  
  
"To the Rose Garden?" Kyungsoo’s hand, still on Jongdae’s shoulder, squeezes. "You’ll have to be careful."  
  
"Why?" Jongdae asks with dread. He’d, for some reason, been hoping this would be easy. But in the script Yixing had written, there was…  
  
"Rumor has it," Baekhyun says, "that the dragon has kidnapped the Flower Prince."  
  
"The… Flower Prince," Jongdae says. It would be inappropriate to laugh at his own life right now. He sneaks a look at Joonmyun to see his lips twitching. Jongdae slips free from Kyungsoo’s hand to sidle closer to Joonmyun. Their elbows brush.  
  
"How many faerie princes are there, exactly?" Joonmyun whispers, and Jongdae laughs helplessly.  
  
"How the hell should I know?" Jongdae looks at Joonmyun’s hands. He’s still got that petal, somehow.  
  
"I thought you were an expert in Laciun history," is Joonmyun’s straight-faced reply, and Jongdae laughs more, rubbing at his face. His fingers come away glittery. Because his face is apparently exuding glitter. Among the strange things happening, this seems more strange than a flying Baekhyun rescuing him from buzzing insect monsters or his own wings.  
  
"Even I am no match for the utter nonsense that spews forth from Zhang Yixing’s creativity," replies Jongdae.  
  
"We can go with you as far as the dragon," Kyungsoo says. "But after that, we’ll have to turn back toward the castle to protect it."  
  
"The Castle of Oz."  
  
"Well, where else would we go?" Baekhyun spins his index finger in the air in a slow circle, and before their eyes appears a cone of cotton candy. "It’s your quest to get the key. We have to protect the castle. What if something happens to Yixing?"  
  
"We'll go with you as far as the dragon, though," Kyungsoo says.  
  
"Of course there’s actually a dragon," Jongdae says. "And hell, I was worried about my rising rent, my finals, and my life getting  _boring_."  
  
A  _dragon_. Okay. Fine. Jongdae will go and face a dragon.  
  
"Hey," Joonmyun says. "Jongdae-yah."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"I’m here," Joonmyun says. He’s…grabbing Jongdae’s hand. "We’re in this together."  
  
"Right," Jongdae says, and he’s not thinking about the dragon, or the keys, or anything other than the fact that Joonmyun’s hand is soft and he’s getting to hold it  _again._  "T-together." Jongdae’s left eyebrow twitches. "Is that why you’re holding my hand?"  
  
Baekhyun hiccups with laughter, and Kyungsoo chuckles. Jongdae should just put his actual foot in his mouth because the literal would be less embarrassing.  
  
"I’m just making sure you don't run away," says Joonmyun, and wow, the sun here in the alternate Everland, this Laciun, is really hot. Hot enough to make Jongdae’s face burn.  
  
"Why are you only this cute around the prince?" Baekhyun says, biting at his candy. "The rest of the time you’re like an extremely tactile pit viper."  
  
"Why are you never cute?" Jongdae replies, and Baekhyun bares his teeth at him, just like he would in the real world, making sure to angle his face so that all the kids in the park will think it’s a smile and not a death threat.  
  
"I’m going to let the ferocious dragon eat you," Baekhyun says. "And if something happens to the Summer Prince it will be your fault for being insufferable."  
  
"I’d rather keep Jongdae, if you don’t mind," Joonmyun says, and Kyungsoo looks moments away from digging out his notebook. Jongdae doesn’t know if this Kyungsoo even has a notebook. He certainly has the ruffled sleeves.  
  
"If you insist," Baekhyun sighs. "No accounting for taste, I suppose."  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says. "Can you believe that there are people in this world that like you?"  
  
"I was the most popular bachelor at the Spring Festival, remember?" Baekhyun takes another huge bite of cotton candy. "It’s my natural charm."  
  
Jongdae squints at Baekhyun and decides that actual faerie Baekhyun is just as infuriating as real life Baekhyun.  
  
"Time is ticking," Kyungsoo says, and Joonmyun, scanning the sky for any more giant bugs, steps back onto Main Street.  
  
Bickering with Baekhyun provides a distraction from... well, everything else. Jongdae focuses on shutting Baekhyun down repeatedly, and enjoys Joonmyun's laughter and occasional input as Kyungsoo shakes his head at all of them like they're children. The road, Main Street, is wide enough for all four of them to walk abreast of each other, just like it is at the amusement park.  
  
Jongdae notes that there are signs along the road. It's not quite wilderness out here. It's too organized, and Jongdae thinks if he were to make a map of Laciun and a map of the park, they would lie atop each other in perfect symmetry, like one had been sketched on tracing paper above the other. "It matches," Jongdae says to Joonmyun, who nods.  
  
"I thought it might, the way you seemed to start walking on autopilot when we left the Castle of Oz."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I was just following your lead," Joonmyun says. "I'm not the one who knows where I'm going. I still get lost on the path from the locker rooms to the Safari Zone."  
  
"That’s a complicated one," says Jongdae. "It's faster if you go through Monkey Valley. It looks longer, but it's not straight uphill."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae relishes the twinkle in his eye even as Baekhyun tells him to pay attention to where he's going. Their arms are brushing with every step now. Jongdae hadn't moved closer, but maybe Joonmyun had by accident. Jongdae contemplates moving away, but Joonmyun doesn't seem to mind the touch and Jongdae is just selfish enough to lean in a bit himself.  
  
"It seems like the rumors of a dragon were much exaggerated," Kyungsoo says. "We're well into the mountains now, and not a sign of anyone guarding the pass."  
  
"We're... what?" Jongdae had been so distracted by the feeling of Joonmyun's skin against his that he had barely noticed that the grass had given way to forest and rocky hillsides. "Oh, so we are."  
  
"This is different," Joonmyun says.  
  
"Different from what?" Baekhyun wrinkles his nose up, taking the last bite of his cotton candy before snapping his pretty thin fingers to make the cone disappear.  
  
"Nothing," Jongdae says. He doesn't know enough about this world to know if talking about not being from it will cause a problem. "His Highness hasn't been out here in a while."  
  
"Obviously," says Baekhyun. "It's not safe. His Highness should stay inside the castle, where it's safe. There's plenty to do there that befits his station."  
  
Joonmyun chuckles. "Even in a fantasy land, everyone tells me the same things."  
  
With a sharp look at Joonmyun that he quickly masks as looking around the forest, Jongdae feels a spark of curiosity. Joonmyun had sounded so...  
  
"I think we can leave you here, though," Baekhyun says. "The Rose Garden is just up there, at the end of the pass. It's a short way, and we've been away from the castle far too long."  
  
"Thank you for your help on our quest," says Joonmyun politely.  
  
"Good riddance," Jongdae adds, although he doesn't mean it, because like it or not he'd felt safer with Kyungsoo and Baekhyun around.  
  
"Jongdae." Kyungsoo waits until Jongdae meets his eyes to look at him. "You should keep thinking about taking the exam."  
  
"The exam?"  
  
"To become a guard," Kyungsoo says. "Even though you didn't pass the first few times, that doesn't mean--"  
  
"I'll think about it," Jongdae interrupts. "I promise."  
  
"Don't keep putting it off," Kyungsoo says. "It's your dream."  
  
There is a flier in the trash, and an audition on the same day as Jongin's nephew's  _dol_. The  _guard exams_. Jongdae laughs.  
  
"It was, at some point. I don't know if it still is."  
  
"Only big fat cowards run away from their dreams because they're hard," Baekhyun sings at him, and having gotten the last word in, takes off into the air, his candy pink wings shimmering in the light. Kyungsoo sighs, and takes off after him, sparing one last grin for Jongdae and Joonmyun as he takes off into the air.  
  
"Take the guard exam, huh?"  
  
"There's an audition Kyungsoo wants me to go to." Jongdae frowns. "But I can't go."  
  
"Why not?" Joonmyun puts both his hands over his eyes, a temporary visor. "Do you have stage fright? You never seem afraid when you perform."  
  
Jongdae's not being judged when he performs for kids and their parents. He's not being weighed, he's just being appreciated. He's entertaining them. It's completely different.  
  
"I have other obligations," Jongdae says, because explaining seems difficult and Joonmyun is probably not interested in Jongdae's sob story. Jongdae is also not interested in reliving it. "And I don’t do auditions."  
  
"Well, at least there's no dragon," Joonmyun says. "Who knows what that would represent."  
  
But then the sky above them becomes dark, and Jongdae trips over a rock in the road. Joonmyun grabs a fistful of the back of his shirt, keeping him upright. Jongdae laughs at himself and thanks him, and Joonmyun doesn't smile back. He's looking up. Jongdae follows his eyes to see that above them, there's a massive lizardlike shape with even more massive outstretched wings, blocking all the sunlight around them.  
  
"You may have spoken too soon," Jongdae croaks, and Joonmyun gulps.  
  
"I may have," he replies.  
  
The dragon lands in front of them in a flurry of dirt and leaves. Its thick silvery claws dig into the ground, and Jongdae thinks each one of those curled nails is about the circumference of his thigh.  
  
The dragon huffs, and the whoosh of air pushes both Joonmyun and Jongdae back, pushing them away from each other. Joonmyun stumbles and falls backward, into a pile of tree branches. Jongdae quickly runs over to help him up, making sure to keep his eyes on the massive beast before him.  
  
The dragon doesn't seem interested in coming closer to them, though. It just watches them with strangely familiar eyes. Its long tongue comes out and sweeps across its mouth.  
  
Jongdae contemplates picking up a stick, but he's distracted by the slickness under his fingers. Blood? Joonmyun's blood. He looks down and gasps, but he doesn't have time to find the source of it. "You all right?"  
  
"I'm fine," Joonmyun says. "We have bigger problems."  
  
"Well, one bigger problem," Jongdae jokes thinly. "One very much bigger problem."  
  
"What are we going to do?"  
  
"I hope," says Jongdae fervently, "that we don't have to slay it."  
  
"It's really beautiful," Joonmyun says, even as he clutches his arm and moves back two careful steps. "It would be a shame to destroy it. Not to mention, I don’t think either of us has  _any_  idea how to fight a dragon."  
  
It is beautiful. Long muscular limbs and dark purple scales that seem to glow as it breathes in and out. Its eyes are the best part, almost feline, and for some reason, Jongdae doesn't actually feel like the dragon wants to hurt him.  
  
But he's supposed to... He's supposed to protect Joonmyun? At least in the script he was supposed to, and now everything else from that script is real, so the danger is too. He can't make assumptions about dragons, just because, somehow, they look like they'd rather cuddle than fight.  
  
"What are you going to do to my dragon?" A figure appears from the shadows, tall and thin. He pings in Jongdae’s memory, but it doesn’t click.  
  
It apparently clicks for Joonmyun, though, because he gasps.  
  
"Sehun?" Joonmyun asks. "Oh Sehun?"  
  
Jongdae peers closer at the boy, and sure enough, that signature rainbow hair shimmers like a crown on a face that is very familiar from Linear Algebra.  
  
"Your dragon?" The dragon, now that Sehun has appeared, is calm, nuzzling into his side and extending one bat-like wing behind him to protect him from some imagined threat. Jongdae looks quickly at Joonmyun, not sure if he wants to take his eyes off the curiously unthreatening dragon. "You know Sehun?" he whispers, and Joonmyun nods quickly, eyes flickering over at Jongdae in surprise that  _Jongdae_  knows Sehun.  
  
"Yes, Zitao is my dragon," says Sehun, and Jongdae wants to punch himself in the face because of course the cute dragon that won’t hurt him is Zitao. Of course Zitao is a  _cute_  dragon. "What do you want?"  
  
"We’re just headed past here to the Rose Garden." Joonmyun points down Main Street, past the rocks, to the sea of flowers they’d glimpsed just before the dragon - before  _Zitao_  - had interrupted their travel. "We’re on a quest to save the Summer Princess, and one of the keys is down there." Jongdae notices a shallow cut on Joonmyun’s arm, likely from when he fell back into that pile of tree branches, and he cringes.  
  
"No one can enter the Rose Garden without my father’s permission," says Sehun. "Those are my family’s lands. So tell me, Prince Joonmyun, why should I let you enter?"  
  
"You’re the kidnapped Flower Prince." Jongdae has a headache. This is so ridiculous and if he’s dreamt all of this up he’s giving up coffee for real this time.  
  
"Obviously I’m the Flower Prince," Sehun says, and then the rest of Jongdae’s words filter in. "I haven’t been kidnapped!" Sehun looks flustered. "I just wanted—" Zitao nuzzles him again, and Jongdae makes a note to tell Zitao that subconsciously, Jongdae’s brain has decided his affection isn’t one sided. "Well, I haven’t been kidnapped, is all."  
  
"All of the kingdom of Laciun is laboring under a different impression," Joonmyun says. "My two guards were accompanying me for a long time in case they had to slay your dragon to protect me. It was only when they were fairly certain that the dragon…" Sehun frowns. "That  _Zitao_ , excuse me, wasn’t going to show up."  
  
"Clearly, Baekhyun is not to be trusted about anything that isn’t the nearest cotton candy vendor," Jongdae says, before he can stop himself, and Joonmyun’s mouth quirks before he straightens his expression.  
  
"There’s a key in the Rose Garden?" Sehun asks thoughtfully. "I suppose you could enter if you wanted to look for a key. Since we’re old friends." He flushes. "I owe you a favor."  
  
"Since we’re old friends," Joonmyun echoes. "You don’t  _owe_  me anything, Sehunnie." Jongdae looks back and forth between the two of them. His eyes flicker again to Joonmyun’s cut arm and he wants to grab it, but something tells him he’s supposed to play his part right now.  
  
"I’m going back up into the mountains with Zitao," Sehun says. "If someone were to enter the Rose Garden while I was up there, I probably wouldn’t notice." He licks his lips, the same way he does in class when their professor is explaining a particularly tricky subject. "And if you were gone by the time I got back, I wouldn’t even have to tell anyone it had happened."  
  
"Thank you," Joonmyun says, and Sehun smiles at him, the dopey cute smile that Zitao in real life waxes rhapsodic over on a regular basis, before nodding and mounting his dragon.  
  
"Let’s go, Zitao," he says, and then Jongdae and Joonmyun are alone on the road again.  
  
"How do you know Oh Sehun?" Joonmyun asks, as they walk down into the valley. The foliage begins to change, becoming more lush. Joonmyun extends both arms to touch as much as he can. Jongdae’s eyes trace the cut on Joonmyun’s arm.  
  
"We take a class together."  
  
"You go to Yongin University?" Joonmyun nods. "Makes sense."  
  
"Accounting major." Jongdae shrugs. "I dunno."  
  
"Accounting, huh?" Joonmyun laughs, walking a bit ahead of Jongdae. Jongdae takes double steps to catch up. Joonmyun’s legs are even shorter than his, so he shouldn’t have to hurry to keep up with him.  
  
"What about it?"  
  
"You don’t strike me as the accounting type."  
  
"That’s because I’m not," Jongdae says. "But I don’t have anything better to study." He remembers throwing his K-ARTS application in the trash. "My parents are pleased."  
  
"You must be in Sehunnie’s Linear Algebra class. It’s the only class he doesn’t take with all first years."  
  
"Zitao is in that class with us." Jongdae presses his mouth into a thin line. "He’s one of my best friends."  
  
"I know all about Zitao," Joonmyun says with a laugh. He stops walking, and Jongdae realizes they’re in some kind of clearing. The grass is more yellow here, but still brighter than life. Even the air tastes like magic. Jongdae could… he could like it here, under different circumstances. "Sehunnie mentions him a lot."  
  
"Maybe that crush Zitao has on him isn’t so one-sided, then," Jongdae says carefully. He’s not sure… Well, there are two ways Joonmyun could take that, and Jongdae hopes…  
  
"Oh, good," says Joonmyun. "I was hoping it was a mutual thing." He takes a deep breath. "So you know Sehun, and Zitao."  
  
"Most definitely," Jongdae says. "I know every… well, person, that we’ve encountered." He shakes his head. His hair is sticking to his forehead. "Kris is never allowed to make coffee again, I’ve just decided."  
  
"So does the magic world mirror our real lives?" Joonmyun seems thoughtful. "Or does it mirror  _your_  life?"  
  
"I don’t know," Jongdae says. "I barely know Sehun. He’s your friend." Jongdae is curious how Joonmyun knows Sehun, but Joonmyun hasn’t offered that information. "Besides, if it mirrors my life, why are you here?" Jongdae folds his ear nervously. "I mean  _you_  you, and not…" He makes a careless, vague gesture, but Joonmyun seems to get it.  
  
"That’s a good question," Joonmyun says. "If this is all your fault…" Jongdae swallows. "Then thanks for bringing me along."  
  
"Thanks?  _Thanks_? You could have been killed twice already!" Jongdae had been under the impression that Joonmyun was smart, back in high school. Sure, he hadn’t been a scholarship kid, like Jongdae, but he’d been in the top class and everyone had always been asking him for homework help after choir rehearsal.  
  
"It’s just…" Joonmyun’s smile slips, and Jongdae’s thoughts come to a screeching halt. "It’s been a while since I felt… excited about something. Since I’ve felt, I don’t know, alive." He laughs, but it doesn’t feel nice, like Joonmyun’s laughs usually do. This laugh feels eerie and strange. "Like I wasn’t just waking up because I was supposed to." Joonmyun squats down to pick up another flower. He doesn’t start picking at the petals, this time. "Every since my first day at Everland, I’ve been… I don’t know, happy?"  
  
"You’re not sure?" Jongdae teases, uncertain if he’s pushing too hard. He knows he can come off as flippant, sometimes, but that’s the last thing he wants. "What with having to spend time with Baekhyun, I guess I can understand the indecision. Also the costumes are murder."  
  
"I’m not sure I remember what happiness feels like," Joonmyun says. "It’s been a long time, you know. Since high school."  
  
"I know," replies Jongdae. He thinks about accounting. He thinks about Jongin’s restaurant. He thinks about his perfectly happy sister cutting throats on her way to the top. He thinks about how it felt to be told  _you still aren’t quite good enough_  as he handed his first audition card back in, and  _you almost had it_  when he’d handed in the last.  
  
"You know what?"  
  
"What you mean about not remembering what happiness feels like," says Jongdae, and he drops down to his knees next to Joonmyun, so they’re the same height. He reaches out to touch the cut on Joonmyun’s arm. Joonmyun winces, but doesn’t pull away. Jongdae doesn’t think it’s a deep enough cut to warrant stitches or anything like that. It probably won’t even scar. He releases the breath he hadn’t known he was holding.  
  
"When we went inside the Magic Tree." Joonmyun rolls the flower stem in his fingers, and the flower shimmers as it spins. "I was really happy, then, when I closed my eyes to make a wish."  
  
A wish. Jongdae’s wish had been… had been to take a day off from his life to get to know Joonmyun. That had been… he’d wished for…  
  
It’s impossible, Jongdae knows. But so is Zitao being a fire-breathing dragon and Baekhyun conjuring cotton candy and Jongdae himself having wings that even now flit back and forth with his agitation.  
  
Jongdae hadn’t wished for magic or danger or anything like that, though.  
  
Then again, Jongdae hadn’t been the only one making a wish. Joonmyun’s hand had been soft and warm and Jongdae had only felt a little guilty keeping hold of it. "Me too." Joonmyun looks up from his flower to stare at Jongdae. "I was happy then, too."  
  
"What about now?" asks Joonmyun. "Right now?"  
  
Jongdae is tired and hungry and his muscles ache. His shirt, he’s just noticed, has a gaping hole in it and there are so many things he has to worry about that don’t involve any kind of faeries or princesses at all. Jongin is probably still asleep on the damn floor in their apartment, messing up his neck and wasting his perfectly good bed.  
  
But Joonmyun is sitting here next to him, open and honest and telling Jongdae things he’s maybe never been able to tell anyone else. Joonmyun’s hair is sticking to his cheeks and his lower lip is red from chewing. Joonmyun is really  _beautiful_  and Jongdae would be lying if he said his heart wasn’t singing.  
  
"I can’t be sure," Jongdae says, "but I think maybe I am."  
  
"Me too," says Joonmyun. "Me too."

  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
The Rose Garden at Everland is one of its greatest attractions in the spring and summer. The great fountains and the blooming roses of all colors draw the young and the old. Even rambunctious boys calm down for a few minutes in the face of so many gorgeous flowers. Jongdae loves the marble statues and the faint floral scent and everything about it.  
  
So the Rose Garden is great. But the Rose Garden with magic is… breathtaking. Each and every bloom seems to glow with some internal power, and Jongdae almost forgets they’ve come to search for anything at all.  
  
Small hands reach up and cup a big pink rose, and Jongdae stops to watch Joonmyun stare down at it with wonder-filled eyes. His lips part, and Jongdae notes that they’re the same color as the rose, soft and pink and…  
  
Now is not the time for that. He looks down. "You’re doing that thing," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae’s head snaps back up. "That thing where your shoelaces tell you fascinating stories."  
  
" _What?_ " Jongdae’s eyebrows climb.  
  
"Well, that’s the only conceivable explanation for your rapt attention to them." Jongdae’s neck is hot. He thinks he’s felt more embarrassment in the past week than he’s felt in the past four years combined. "You did it a lot in high school, too."  
  
"Shoes don’t talk," Jongdae says.  
  
"Yes," replies Joonmyun, "that would be impossible."  
  
"I always know what to say." Jongdae resists the lure of his sneakers to hold Joonmyun’s gaze. "But not always around you."  
  
"But you’re not shy," Joonmyun says. "When we were in high school, everyone used to tell me how funny you were. How witty." Joonmyun chuckles. "But I only got to see it if you didn’t know I wasn’t in the room." And oh, Jongdae had never wanted Joonmyun to notice that. "What is it about me that makes you so nervous?"  
  
 _Everything_  is an accurate answer. "I admire you." Jongdae says, finally giving up, looking around the garden instead of continuing to look into Joonmyun’s eyes. "A lot."  
  
"You should find someone worthy of that admiration."  
  
Jongdae frowns. "You are."  
  
"Why?" Joonmyun smiles. "Because I was good at school? Because I’m rich and I sing all right and I’ve got excellent manners?"  
  
Jongdae crosses his arms and taps his foot. They’re in the grass, so no dirt and dust fly up.  
  
Jongdae remembers one time, in high school, when a teacher was reaming Jongin out in the hallway outside classroom 3B during transition for falling asleep during class  _again_ , and Joonmyun had quietly interceded. "We can forgive him just this once, right?" he’d said, carrying his Japanese book and two notebooks, and the teacher had melted under Joonmyun’s smile the same way everyone did, really.  
  
He hadn’t even known Jongin.  
  
"It’s because you’re so kind," Jongdae says. "I’ve always admired how kind you are."  
  
Joonmyun is staring at him with a slightly gaping mouth. It’s really adorable and Jongdae wants to give him a hug. "I…"  
  
"You probably don’t remember half the things you’ve done for people." Jongdae’s eyes still avoid Joonmyun’s, following the slope of his nose and catching on the scar by his mouth. "But they remember them."  
  
"I remember how cute you were sprawled out in the hallway with one shoe," says Joonmyun, and Jongdae’s chest constricts. "Are you going to gossip with your laces now?"  
  
"Stop picking on me," Jongdae says. "Or I’ll take all my nice words back."  
  
"Too bad," Joonmyun says, "I’ve already stored them away." His eyebrows are dancing and his grin is mischievous. "Can’t take your own medicine, Kim Jongdae?"  
  
"I hate medicine." Out of the corner of his eye, Jongdae sees movement. "There’s something here."  
  
Joonmyun immediately straightens, looking left and right. "Where?"  
  
"Over there, near the statues." They both stare, and before their eyes, the statues themselves begin to move. First fingers then whole arms, and Joonmyun grabs Jongdae’s hand.  
  
"What are we supposed to do?" Joonmyun asks. The statues are huge. In Everland, they stand amidst the fountains, a bizarre ode to Greek sculpture. Here, they’re terrifyingly large, as big as the blooms and the trees and the buildings.  
  
"We have to find the key and get out of here," Jongdae says. "I have no idea where to start looking, though."  
  
"Me neither. I sort of thought it would be like the show?" Joonmyun is squeezing Jongdae’s hand. "That the key would just… be here."  
  
"But in the show, the key was…" Jongdae scrunches his face up in dismay.  
  
"In the fountain," Joonmyun finishes, and they both watch as the statue from the middle of the fountain slowly comes to life.   
  
"Well, that’s great," says Jongdae.  
  
"I don’t think great means what you think it means," Joonmyun says, dropping Jongdae’s hand.  
  
"Jongin tells me that all the time," Jongdae muses. "My roommate, Jongin." Joonmyun takes a step forward, toward the fountain. " _What are you doing?_ "  
  
"We have to get the key, right?" Joonmyun takes another step. Slowly, as though he’s trying not to startle the marble statue that can now move one of its legs. "Like Kyungsoo-ssi said, time is ticking."  
  
Jongdae thinks about stopping him, because clearly Joonmyun goes on the list with Baekhyun of people who can’t be trusted, but he steels himself and takes a step forward after him. The sooner they get all three keys and rescue the princess, the sooner they can theoretically go home.  
  
The statue’s face is animating now, and when its features go from amorphous to decipherable, Joonmyun gasps. " _Hyung_?"  
  
"Joonmyun," the statue says. "Why are you here?"  
  
"I have come for the key," Joonmyun says. He has switched to even politer Korean than he usually speaks, constricted and tight and stuffy. His back is ramrod straight.  
  
"And what if I give it to you?" The statue moves, and Joonmyun steps back, shoulder blades bumping into Jongdae’s chest. Jongdae steadies him with his hands. "What will you do with it?"  
  
"I have to save the princess," Joonmyun says. He sounds small. Nervous. It’s not very like him.  
  
"So you’ll take the key and leave me here in the garden," the statue says. "Why am I not surprised?"  
  
"It’s not… It doesn’t have anything to do with you."  
  
"Do you even care about princesses, Joonmyunnie?" He is mocking, now, and the statue, Jongdae thinks, looks a lot like  _Joonmyun_ , only without the kindness in the jaw or the genuine joy in the set of the brow.  
  
"Don’t call me that," Joonmyun says. Voice catching, hands clenched. "I’m not a child anymore."  
  
"We’ve never been children," the statue says. It’s more monstrous than the monster that had first attacked them on Main Street. Scarier than the dragon. "Why should I give you the key?"  
  
"You’re my brother," Joonmyun says. "Why won’t you help me?"  
  
"You didn’t help me." The statue produces a key from nothing, and it glows brightly in his outstretched hand. "Now I’m trapped here, only able to move when strangers enter the Rose Garden."  
  
"I’m sorry," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae squeezes Joonmyun’s hips again.  
  
"Don’t be a big bully," Jongdae says, shocking even himself with the strength of his voice. "We need that key or we could be stuck here too! Is that what you want?"  
  
"This is a family matter," the statue says, and  _oh, creepy_ , it blinks. "Mind your business, servant."  
  
"Don’t talk to him like that." Joonmyun is shivering. His wings, trapped between Joonmyun’s back and Jongdae’s chest, tickle Jongdae’s chin.  
  
"No matter what, I’m going to spend forever in this garden." The statue starts to breathe. Jongdae can’t see Joonmyun’s face, but he can feel his heart, rabbit quick, against his chest. "So tell me, Joonmyun, why should I give you the key?"  
  
"I don’t know," Joonmyun says. "But I’m hoping you’ll give it to me anyway."  
  
"You’ve always been pretty optimistic." Derisive. Jongdae wonders if this is how Joonmyun’s brother speaks to him in real life. His hand slides up Joonmyun’s side in comfort. Joonmyun doesn’t seem to notice, but his shoulders square.  
  
"One of us has to be," Joonmyun says. "I’m doing it for the both of us." He pulls free of Jongdae’s stabilizing hands, and Jongdae fights the want to step after him. "Won’t you give me the key, hyung?"  
  
The statue leans forward until it’s curled over Joonmyun, dwarfing him beneath its massive marble body.  
  
"All right," he says. "You can have it, then,  _Your Highness_. Just like you have everything else."  
  
"Not everything," replies Joonmyun, and the statue laughs, this horrible sound that sounds like pulverizing stone. It holds out a hand, and clutched in it is something gold. Slowly, the fingers open, releasing an ornate, oversized key.  
  
The key falls between them, and Joonmyun bends down and picks it up, shoving it quickly into his pocket. The statue goes still, arm still outstretched, and Joonmyun stares at it for a moment before he stumbles back.  
  
Then he blinks rapidly and walks into the wall of roses to their left, disappearing into the high grass and higher blooms.  
  
It takes Jongdae time to process, and with one last look at the giant statue, he runs after Joonmyun.  
  
He catches up to him when the high grass gives way to low, and the roses grow in long thin vines up white pillars.  
  
"I guess that answers the question of whether or not it’s just my life." Jongdae is slightly out of breath from chasing after Joonmyun, who is faster than you’d expect from a man in designer boat shoes.  
  
"Guess it does," Joonmyun says. His shoulders are hunched, and this whole altercation with the statue is the first time he looks troubled to be here, in this magical land that seems crafted to delight him.  
  
"Do you not… like your brother?" Jongdae would understand that. He loves his sister, but sometimes the resentment crawls up on him unexpectedly, because she’s done everything right and Jongdae had taken too long to fall in line.  
  
"I like him," Joonmyun says. "I don’t know if he likes me or not."  
  
"Why would anyone not like you?" Jongdae is genuinely puzzled. There’s nothing about Joonmyun that could…  
  
"He didn’t… get off as easily as me," says Joonmyun. "He had to become the lawyer and all the expectations were on him. Even if I was a little rebellious, well, my parents would say  _at least he’s not the oldest_ , you know?" Joonmyun sighs. "That and… there’s another thing, too, but… I think that’s the main thing."  
  
"But that’s not your fault."  
  
"I certainly took advantage of it." Joonmyun’s brown hair looks darker now, matted down with sweat. "My brother is a statue in the family garden and I’m the bird that gets to fly away." His wings shiver and shudder.  
  
Jongdae reaches out and drags a hand along one wing, It feels like silk under his palm, and it sends heat up his arm. Joonmyun looks up at him, startled.  
  
"You’re a very lovely bird," Jongdae says. "I like your wings." It’s totally dorky and trying to be funny probably won’t help anything at all, but Jongdae doesn’t know what to say that isn’t out of line.  
  
If Joonmyun were Jongin, he would tell him  _"you can only be yourself,"_  or  _"people can be disappointed in you but that doesn’t mean they hate you."_ If it were Zitao, he’d say  _"chin up, sexy, the world is your oyster."_  
  
But to Joonmyun? It seems safer to make a joke than to tell Joonmyun that he’s amazing and he deserves to fly. Besides, Jongdae’s not too sure that people deserve things at all. He thinks it might all be some game of Russian Roulette and only one out of every six people get that shot at happiness. He could maybe tell Joonmyun he’d always thought he was the chamber with a bullet.  
  
And to Jongdae’s surprise, Joonmyun laughs, his face transforming into that genuine smile that had stopped Jongdae’s heart the first time he’d seen it. "I like your wings too, Jongdae," he says.  
  
"They are pretty great, huh?" He moves them, and Joonmyun laughs again. It’s a wonderful sound.  
  
Hesitating for just a moment, Jongdae gives in and wraps an arm around Joonmyun’s neck. He leans his head on Joonmyun’s shoulder and pulls him into a one-armed hug, fitting Joonmyun against his side.  
  
Joonmyun is shorter than Jongdae’s other friends, and smaller boned. His body seems to tuck so easily into Jongdae, and though he’s stiff at first, he relaxes into Jongdae’s touch.  
  
"I never really talk about myself like this," Joonmyun says. "I’ve never really… Felt like I should. Since my life is not… Things are not hard, save for…" Joonmyun shakes his head, and his hair tickles Jongdae’s forehead. He smells like his cologne still. Jongdae probably smells like sweat, but Joonmyun has not pushed him away.  
  
"I like listening." Jongdae squeezes once. Joonmyun hums, softly, and Jongdae lets his arm fall. "If you ever want to talk."  
  
"Who’s the hyung, here?" Joonmyun has put his face back on, when Jongdae finishes pulling away. The vulnerability that had seemed etched so deep has disappeared beneath a mask of geniality. "When did you start talking to my face instead of your shoelaces?"  
  
"You’re slightly better conversation," Jongdae says, and on reflex, he looks at his watch. It’s still stopped right past six. The sun is high.  
  
"Only slightly?" Joonmyun pushes at him, so gently that Baekhyun would have mocked him for it. "We have to keep moving."  
  
He digs into his pocket and pulls out the key. It’s a shiny golden color, glimmering in a way the prop keys never had. It’s also smaller, only the size of Joonmyun’s hand instead of Kris’s. The jewels embedded in it glow the color of roses.  
  
"The second key, then?" Jongdae asks. Joonmyun nods. He digs into his pocket again, this time producing the flower petal from earlier that Jongdae had forgotten about. It’s still crisp and unharmed, like it had never been jammed into Joonmyun’s pocket hours ago. "Effl… something?"  
  
"Effeuiller la marguerite," Joonmyun say, patiently, and there is mystery to the way he folds the petal into his hand. "It’s French."  
  
"Jongin speaks French," Jongdae says. "My—"  
  
"Your roommate," says Jongdae. "I remember. He was your friend in high school."  
  
"Yes." Jongdae hadn’t thought Joonmyun would know that. "Tall, handsome kid that likes to sleep."  
  
"Yeah." Joonmyun tucks the petal and the key back into his pocket. "He was handsome. He had a good smile." Jongdae’s insides are squirming, but he ignores it. "Where to?"  
  
"In the wild where the beasts roam free, of course," is Jongdae’s answer.  
  
"Oh right," Joonmyun says. "The Safari Zone."  
  
"The Safari Zone." Jongdae narrows his eyes and tries to figure out where they are. The sun is high and burning his cheeks, so they’re probably at the far end of the Rose Garden.  
  
"Why do I have a feeling," Joonmyun says, as they start to walk, "that the lions are going to be the least of our problems?"  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
It’s easy enough to find their way back onto Main Street. Jongdae knows this park like the back of his hand, even if it’s all slightly different now.  
  
The Safari Zone is one of Jongdae’s favorite places in Everland. When he’d first gotten his job, he’d brought Jongin to the park, and he and Jongin had spent most of their time in the petting zoo, Jongin on his hands and knees with the six-year-olds feeding carrots to bunnies and petting other weird furry creatures. Jongdae had bit his lip and pretended not to see the sheen in Jongin’s eyes that was probably a result of missing the three puppies he’d been forced to leave behind when he’d left his parents’ house.  
  
Now, entering Zootopia with Joonmyun, Jongdae just feels a sense of dread.  
  
Joonmyun, despite the way he keeps exclaiming excitedly over the weird plants and bright colors, is clearly still shaken from their encounter in the Rose Garden. Jongdae knows they have to get two more keys, and somehow, he knows it’s not going to get any easier.  
  
"You’d think we’d see more people," Joonmyun says. "Everything feels so empty."  
  
"I always get weirded out by the park in the morning." Jongdae pulls at his sweat-sticky shirt. He should just take it off, but he likes this shirt and it might be the only thing saving him from a horrible burn. He can already feel the uncomfortable pull of skin on the insides of his elbows, and he’s glad he missed that haircut last week because even if it’s hot, his hair is saving him from a worse burn on the nape of his neck. "It always feels like some horror movie. This morning I was anticipating the zombie apocalypse."  
  
"I was so nervous this morning I thought the strange ambiance was all internal," Joonmyun replies. Here, in the uncovered, dryer section of the Laciun, Joonmyun’s face has gone red, and he’s finally starting to show signs of exertion. "Now, I realize I should have been more wary."  
  
"It’s not like we could have anticipated this," Jongdae says. "I still think this is linked to Kris’s horrible coffee."  
  
"Then Kyungsoo-ssi would be right here with us," says Joonmyun. "Can you imagine?"  
  
"He would be so miserable!" Jongdae pushes his hair out of his face. It’s grossly damp. "Jongin would love it, though."  
  
"You talk about Jongin a lot." Joonmyun’s hand sneaks into his pocket. Probably to reassure himself the key is still there.  
  
"He’s a big part of my life," Jongdae says. "Probably one of my most important people."  
  
"Is he…" Joonmyun frowns, but he turns it back into a smile so fast the frown might never really have existed at all. "It must be nice, to have a person like that."  
  
"Jongin is…" Jongin is the person who held Jongdae, combing fingers through his hair and wiping his face with a wet washcloth, when he got back from that first failed audition. He’s the person whose big, full body hugs comforted Jongdae through the last failed audition, too, when Jongdae had thought he’d never feel okay in his own skin again. Jongin is the person that never asks Jongdae uncomfortable questions and never takes Baekhyun’s side in arguments and makes Jongdae breakfast on three days out of a week if he can, even though the thing he hates most is getting out of bed. "He’s more like family than a friend."  
  
"Hmm," Joonmyun says. "That’s…"  
  
"Hyung!" Jongdae jumps at the familiar low-voiced yell, and then he’s being lifted off his feet. And hell if it isn’t Jongin, tall and warm-skinned and winged, just like Jongdae.  
  
"Put me down, Tarzan, or I’ll tell everyone in your class you don’t even like French food."  
  
"What?" Jongin drops Jongdae back down onto his own feet, and Jongdae stumbles into Joonmyun. Joonmyun grabs him firmly around the upper arm, and then drops his hand. "What are you even talking about?" Jongin smiles at him widely, and Jongdae’s stomach slowly unknots. He’d had no idea it was even knotted in the first place, but he breathes in easy for the first time in hours as Jongin puts both hands on his shoulders. "Anyway, you’re just the person I was looking for." He slides his eyes over to Joonmyun. "Oh, Your Highness, you can help me too."  
  
"Help you?" Jongin’s hair is big and fluffy from the humidity, and he’s wearing a black shirt tucked into black pants. There’s golden fur, though, across his chest and arms, that has clearly come from a heavy animal. "Jongin, you can’t play with furry creatures and wear all black, we’ve been over this with the pet café thing." Only they haven’t maybe. There probably aren’t even pet cafes in Laciun.  
  
‘You will, won’t you?" Jongin’s eyes plead. "It’s really important."  
  
"Of course I will," Jongdae says. He brings a hand up to hang on to one of Jongin’s arms. "Have I ever let you down?"  
  
"No, hyung, you’d never." Jongin grins, and Jongdae turns to Joonmyun to ask if he’s in. Joonmyun’s eyes are fixed on where Jongdae’s hand rests on Jongin’s bicep. "Your Highness?"  
  
"Oh, yes, what can we do to help?"  
  
Jongin takes a deep breath, mouth twisting like the time he’d had to tell Jongdae about the meringue bath he’d given the kitchen floor last year, and Jongdae knows they’re in for a doozy.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
This is how Jongdae finds himself chasing a lion cub through a jungle.  
  
Here’s what had happened: Jongin had volunteered to watch over the royal menagerie for Kris while he was off doing… something else, that Jongin had described haltingly as involving a lot of wild chimpanzees. While Jongin had been feeding the animals, the lion cubs had somehow managed to chew through enough of their pen to escape out into the jungle, and Jongin hadn’t noticed until he’d gone to make sure they’d managed their food.  
  
He tells all this to Jongdae and Joonmyun with his hair falling into his face and his wings flapping urgently back and forth fast enough that Jongdae thinks he should be flying, and Jongdae soothingly pets his hair until Jongin explains that the lion cubs are in serious  _danger_  in the jungle, because there’s a monster in there that could eat them and if anything happens to the cubs it would be  _all Jongin’s fault._  
  
"So we just have to find a couple of baby lions," Jongdae says. "Should be easy enough."  
  
There are three lion cubs, and it is not remotely easy. They find the first one asleep in a bush, and Joonmyun picks him up carefully, cradling him in his arms. "He’s so cute," Joonmyun coos, and Jongdae has a million "you look like a new mother" jokes on the tip of his tongue, except Joonmyun doesn’t. He just looks really hot, because his button up shirt is clinging to his muscles and he’s holding a fucking lion.  
  
"The other two are slightly more…" Jongin stops to consider. "Rambunctious," he decides on, and Jongdae laughs. "Well, let’s go."  
  
Joonmyun and Jongdae split off from Jongin, Joonmyun holding on to his lion cub and Jongdae trying to keep from staring at Joonmyun. Joonmyun is hovering, too, for some reason. Jongdae can still smell Joonmyun’s cologne. It is completely and totally unfair that Jongdae is a tragic mess and Joonmyun still looks so good.  
  
They have to chase the second cub, through low hanging vines and trees. Jongdae runs ahead of Joonmyun, chasing the cub until it’s cornered. Something slices into his shoulder, a tree branch maybe, and it stings. "Fuck," he mutters to himself, but then he slowly draws in closer to the cub.  
  
And so the second baby lion is scooped up by Jongdae, who is feeling triumphant. An out of breath Joonmyun laughs, his own baby lion wriggling in his arms, and Jongdae is momentarily enraptured by the joy in his eyes before he hugs Joonmyun, trapping the two wriggling cubs between them. Joonmyun’s head fits so nicely into the curve of Jongdae’s neck. Joonmyun’s breath is heavy against Jongdae’s skin, and then he drops his forehead to Jongdae’s shoulder, nose dipping into his collarbone.  
  
Jongin, who has found them probably via all the noise, clears his throat, and Jongdae moves away from Joonmyun, embarrassed. Adrenaline makes people act silly, he knows. He keeps his eyes off Joonmyun’s face.  
  
"Let’s get these little guys to safety." Jongin throws an arm around Jongdae’s shoulders, and Jongdae hisses.  
  
"My wings," he says,  _like it’s normal for people’s wings to get in the way of hugs_ , and Jongin examines them, panicked, looking for an injury that isn’t there.  
  
"Sorry, hyung," he says, and Jongdae looks up to maybe commiserate with Joonmyun on silly dongsaengs, but Joonmyun has turned away from them with a frown etched on his face, and even his lion cub looks kind of morose.  
  
Jongin reclaims the cubs from them both, and walks away from them toward the animal pens. Jongdae follows, and he’s concerned when Joonmyun doesn’t.  
  
Maybe Joonmyun is tired of his company. Maybe he needs a break from Jongdae’s chatter and insults and unexpected bouts of blushing. Maybe he’s upset that Jongdae caressed his wings and side hugged him and did all these Jongdae-things that are probably as infuriating to Joonmyun as Joonmyun’s flirty smiles are to Jongdae, if not in the same way.  
  
Joonmyun might be too nice to say Jongdae shouldn’t touch him. The Joonmyun he remembers from high school had always been too polite to say anything like that.  
  
Jongin puts the lion cubs into a pen that looks slightly more secure than the one they’d escaped from.  
  
"There’s one more," Jongdae says. "Where do you think we’ll find it?"  
  
"Hyung, you have to find the other two keys! You can’t waste any more time on this!"  
  
"If I’m doing something for you, it isn’t wasting time," Jongdae says. "I told you I would help you, and I will." He crouches down to put a hand into the pen, and one of the baby lions chews lightly and affectionately on his finger. It sort of hurts, but the lion cub means well. Jongdae names him Baekhyun in his head.  
  
"I can do the rest of this by myself. You’re not  _that_  much older than me."  
  
"But I promised—"  
  
"You know, hyung, at some point, you’re going to have to let me rely on myself. Otherwise you’ll spend the rest of your life giving up the things  _you_ want for the things I want."  
  
"I don’t have…" The little lion cub paws at Jongdae’s hand, and he draws back.  
  
"Like the guard exam! You know you want to take it. You’re just afraid. But I can’t be the excuse you use to avoid it."  
  
"What wise advice," Jongdae says, balancing on the balls of his feet and ruffling Jongin’s hair. "When did you grow up?"  
  
"A long time ago, hyung." He blows his hair out of his face. "You must have missed it."  
  
"I must have." He looks over at Joonmyun. He has that petal out again, and he’s holding it up in front of his face and pouting at it. "I don’t know why he’s upset with me."  
  
"He isn’t." Jongin makes that smug face, the one usually reserved for perfectly seared veal or some oneupmanship in his culinary class.  
  
"Then why is he acting so odd?"  
  
"He’s jealous of me," Jongin says.  
  
"What?"  
  
"He’s jealous of me." Jongin steps back. "That you have me, I guess."  
  
"I think…" Jongdae ignores the skip of his heart, the same jump he gets right before he sings his first note on Saturday mornings. "I think he’s jealous that I have someone I can talk to the same way I talk to you."  
  
It’s almost like talking to Jongin in the kitchen late at night, Jongin with butter smeared across his knuckles as he kneads dough for pastry. "No, no, hyung." Jongin laughs. "I think he’s jealous that you have me, because he wants to have you."  
  
"Don’t be ridiculous," Jongdae snaps, and damn, his Jongin would have backed off by now at the cactus vibes that Jongdae is giving off. Or maybe, Jongdae thinks, his Jongin has been waiting to push Jongdae for a long time.  
  
"I know…" Jongin hesitates. "I know you like him."  
  
"You don’t know anything—"  
  
"You like him like other guys like girls," Jongin is quiet, but clear. "You know I don’t care."  
  
Jongdae really wishes he were in his kitchen right now. That  _his_  Jongin was the one saying this to him right now, with buttery hands and a lopsided smile. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear it. "I’m…"  
  
"The prince likes you too."  
  
"No," Jongdae says. "At least not like how you’re implying." He shakes his head. "That’s not the way my life works."  
  
"Such a pessimist, hyung."  
  
"Realist," Jongdae corrects. "And realistically, Joonmyun-hyung and I are running out of time."  
  
"Go," Jongin shoos. "I can find my last missing lion on my own."  
  
"Good luck," says Jongdae, and he walks back over to Joonmyun. "Hey there."  
  
"Hey." Joonmyun’s forehead is sticky with a bit of blood.  
  
"Are you hurt?" Jongdae catches Joonmyun’s face between both hands. Joonmyun’s cheeks are smooth and soft under his palms. All of Joonmyun’s skin must be that soft.  
  
"It’s your blood, not mine," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae remembers the shallow wound on his shoulder. Joonmyun’s head resting there.  
  
 _Don’t go there, Jongdae. Just don’t._  
  
Joonmyun is looking sideways, not at Jongdae. Jongdae drops his hands, and Joonmyun slips away from him. "We need to get the second key." He points up at the sky. "It’s getting late."  
  
The sun does look lower in the sky. Jongdae’s stomach rumbles with hunger and his lips are dry and cracked. "Then off we go," he says. "Deeper into the wilds."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
They don’t talk, at first, just walking in silence. Jongdae doesn’t know why things have suddenly gotten tense. He feels like he’s supposed to fill the quiet between them, but he doesn’t know what to say.  
  
"Jongin’s parents kicked him out right after he turned seventeen," he finds himself saying, and Joonmyun, who’d been walking slightly ahead of Jongdae, slows down to listen.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Jongin’s younger than me, you know? Not by much, but he’s a year ahead of his own age group, in school. That’s why he calls me hyung. Because I’m a little over a year older than he is."  
  
"I didn’t know that," says Joonmyun. "I’d wondered."  
  
"He’s like you, kind of." Jongdae scratches at his ear. "I mean, he comes from a richy-rich family with lots of expectations." Jongdae had always had to make sure not to take advantage. He found lots of things for him and Jongin to do after school that hadn’t involved much money, like playing games on the computer or testing out Jongin’s new recipes in Jongdae’s kitchen and doing a mad scramble to clean up before his mom got home from work. "But Jongin likes to cook."  
  
"Cook?" Joonmyun’s slowed down even more now, walking side by side with Jongdae again.  
  
"Yeah, he wants to be a professional chef one day. Open his own restaurant."  
  
"That’s a cool career," Joonmyun says. "So why did his parents kick him out?"  
  
"Jongin’s family owns a hospital," Jongdae says. "His parents are both doctors, and his two older sisters are doctors. Jongin is the only son, and he was supposed to be a doctor, too."  
  
"That’s a lot of doctors," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae chuckles.  
  
"Which is worse, a lot of doctors or a lot of lawyers?"  
  
Joonmyun cringes. "Point taken," he says, and Jongdae laughs. "So Jongin decides to go to culinary school, or something, and he gets kicked out? Isn’t that a bit extreme?"  
  
"I think they thought if they threatened him with it, he would back down. He might have still been able to go to culinary school, maybe, but it would have been on their terms. And I think Jonginnie… got tired of that? Tired of living on other people’s terms."  
  
"I can empathize," says Joonmyun. "Really, I can."  
  
"I thought you might be able to." The underbrush grows thicker. Jongdae has to pay more attention to where he’s stepping, now. Joonmyun keeps stumbling, too, and Jongdae isn’t sure which of them is clumsier.  
  
"When he showed up at my new apartment… well, I’d been looking for a roommate, you know? Not because I couldn’t afford the apartment, but because I didn’t want to live all by myself. Having my best friend live with me was really as much for me as it was for him." Jongdae swallows, and thinks about Joonmyun’s confession, earlier, in the Rose Garden, about his brother. "I wasn’t… I wasn’t doing so well, then."  
  
Joonmyun is listening intently. He’s not looking at Jongdae, but he’s moving as quietly as he can, taking in Jongdae’s words without comment.  
  
"I was really sad," Jongdae says. "Jongin gave me something to focus on that wasn’t my own problems. Actually, my own problems looked silly in the face of Jongin’s. It gave me perspective." Jongdae rubs at his eyes. They’re dry. "Helped me stop feeling sorry for myself."  
  
"You guys are so close."  
  
"Jongin is my brother," Jongdae says. "I guess there are a lot of ways it could have worked out, but this is the way it has. He’s my little brother and I love him."  
  
"I see." Joonmyun bumps his hip against Jongdae’s. "Sehunnie is like my little brother, I think." Relieved that the tension is broken, Jongdae bumps him back. "We were… in the same boat, so we depended on each other."  
  
"Really?" Jongdae means to clarify what that boat is, but then he hears a gentle mewling sound. "Wait, I think that’s…"  
  
"A lion cub!" Joonmyun’s whole face lights up, and Jongdae had been confused by how much Joonmyun loved being in Laciun, but he’d missed it. "How’d you get all the way out here, baby?"  
  
"This is pretty far for it to have gotten on its own…" There’s a deep growl from behind them, and Jongdae sighs. "Assuming, of course, that it got here on its own."  
  
"Remember how the first key was in the fountain?" Joonmyun whispers, slowly turning away from where they’d heard the lion cub in the bushes toward where they’d heard the much more frightening growl.  
  
"Definitely," Jongdae replies, grasping blindly for Joonmyun’s hand and linking their fingers together when he finds it.  
  
"Please tell me I’ve remembered incorrectly about where we find the second key."  
  
"In the mouth of a lion in the Safari Zone," Jongdae replies. "No, it seems to me you’ve just about memorized the script."  
  
From out of the undergrowth comes a  _massive_  female lion, twice Jongdae’s size. It has big yellow eyes that seem to take in every single twitch of Jongdae’s body.  
  
"We might… be in trouble," Joonmyun says. His palm is so sweaty against Jongdae’s. Jongdae can feel his subtle tremors. They probably aren’t subtle at all to the lioness in front of them. "Female lions are the more dangerous ones."  
  
"It has no reason to attack us," Jongdae reasons. "Maybe we can just—" The lioness growls again, and Jongdae laughs, bordering on hysterical. His wings are beating furiously, and for the first time, he wonders if he can use them to  _fly_. That would be convenient, except he has no idea how that would work and Jongdae isn’t actually a faerie, not like Baekhyun and Lu Han and Yixing and Jongin in this world. "Then again, maybe we smell like lion cubs."  
  
"You’re wearing a black shirt," Joonmyun says. "Don’t you know fur shows worst on that?"  
  
"Shut up, hyung," Jongdae snaps, and then flushes, because he doesn’t talk to Joonmyun like that. "I mean—"  
  
Joonmyun laughs. "Well, if we die here, at least I got to the insult level with you."  
  
Still blushing horribly, Jongdae tries to focus on the lion that is slowly stalking closer. "Hyung, I have an idea."  
  
"Do you?" Joonmyun flexes his fingers, knuckles rubbing Jongdae’s. "I hope it’s a good one."  
  
"It’s actually not." Jongdae’s knees are trembling. He licks his lips and he can taste the magic in the air. "Do you remember how we defeat the lion, in the show?"  
  
"You sing to it," Joonmyun replies. "Please tell me that’s not your plan."  
  
"It’s totally my plan." Jongdae peels himself away from Joonmyun, tentatively closing in on the lioness, who bristles at his approach. "If it works, we’ll have to get the key out of her mouth."  
  
"I don’t even see a key," Joonmyun says. "Although given the size of her teeth, maybe I wouldn’t."  
  
Jongdae knows this song by heart. (It was the first one he’d learned. Yixing had composed it right in front of him, after all, strumming the melody on his guitar and making Jongdae sing it as he fixed the tempo. "Your voice really would soothe a lion," Yixing had said, and Baekhyun, who had been sitting across from them, had expelled a burst of indignant air from his nose.  
  
"That’s because she would know that Jongdae wasn’t a threat."  
  
"Oh, does your screeching indicate your alpha-ness?" Jongdae had replied, and Baekhyun had looked for something to throw.)  
  
He sings clearly and surprisingly evenly, given how much he’s trembling, and wonder of all wonders, the lioness calms, her huge yellow eyes blinking sleepily. She yawns, breathing into Jongdae’s face. It smells like blood and like half-digested meat, but Jongdae doesn’t waver, continuing to sing until she sinks down onto her haunches and sleeps.  
  
"How in the world did you know that would work?" From behind the lion, a figure emerges. His hair is pushed back from his face with a headband, and he’s smiling in pleased surprise until he recognizes who they are.  
  
Jongdae takes a deep, relieved gulp of air, before he realizes that, of course, he recognizes the man in front of him. "Hyung?"  
  
"Minseok?" Jongdae should stop being surprised that Joonmyun knows so many of his friends.  
  
"Your Highness," Minseok says, bowing. "Long time no see."  
  
"I… uh…" Joonmyun seems at a loss, so Jongdae picks up the thread of conversation.  
  
"Hyung, we need to find the second key to rescue the princess!"  
  
"I’d heard about your quest from Lu Han, but I hadn’t thought I find you so deep in the Safari Zone. Your Highness, it’s dangerous." Minseok looks at Jongdae, gently chiding. "How could you let him come here?" He smiles to soften it, but his words make Jongdae feel guilty.  
  
This is all pretense, this royalty thing! He shouldn’t feel guilty, because he and Joonmyun are in this mess together.  
  
"It’s my quest," Joonmyun says. "We had thought the key might be…"  
  
"It’s here, all right," Minseok says. "Look at the size of this lioness!" He rolls up his sleeves, and there are scars going up his arms. "Only serious business magic could do this." He drops down to his knees by the lioness’s sleeping head, and Jongdae contemplates singing again, just in case.  
  
"The Minseok in our world likes to play football," Joonmyun says to Jongdae. "The Minseok in this world likes to play with lions?"  
  
"I guess both take balls," Jongdae replies, and Joonmyun chokes on his own spit before playfully slapping at Jongdae’s arms.  
  
"Jongdae-yah~" Joonmyun’s eyes crinkle up and now that the danger has passed, Jongdae feels free to let his stomach jump around like it’s filled with popping corn kernels.  
  
"How do you even know Minseok?"  
  
"Minseok is the only reason I took the job at the amusement park for the season," Joonmyun says. "He’d heard from his friend, Lu Han, that one of your actors had quit, and I’d just quit my own job, too. It seemed like, I don’t know, fate?"  
  
"Fate," Jongdae says, and Joonmyun’s mouth is really pretty and Jongdae wants to kiss it.  _Stop it Jongdae, and don’t push your luck._  "So you decided that after your high-stakes law internship what you really needed to do was go work with hundreds of thousands of unruly children at an amusement park."  
  
"Pretty much," Joonmyun says. "You probably wouldn’t understand, but fitting into a box someone else has made for you is really—"  
  
"Stifling," Jongdae says. "Boring." Jongdae sometimes wonders if he wouldn’t be happier staying at Everland than working as an accountant. Going in to the same office day in and day out without that promise of weird.  
  
Joonmyun seems to get that in a way Zitao and Jongin never have. Even with his co-workers at the park, Everland is a stop on the way to some bigger dream. Jongdae doesn’t really have a bigger dream anymore, but he knows that there will be even less to look forward to if he steps out into the corporate world.  
  
("Accountants don’t really go to auditions," Jongdae had told Kyungsoo, the first time Kyungsoo had told him about some singing thing.  
  
"You’re not an accountant yet," Kyungsoo had replied.")  
  
Minseok draws their attention again with an exclamation of victory. Jongdae’s eyes are practically bugging out of his head when he sees that Minseok’s hand is in the lioness’s mouth. "Got it, I think!"  
  
"Oh good," Jongdae says. "Now take your hand out of the lioness’s mouth, please."  
  
Minseok does, and when his hand is clear of the lioness’s sharp teeth, she starts to shrink, until there’s nothing but a normal sized lioness in front of them.  
  
"But…" Joonmyun’s eyes are filled with that delight again. He’s incorrigible, in Jongdae’s opinion.  
  
"The keys are bad magic," says Minseok, as he combs his hand through the matted back fur of the now docile lioness. "They heighten the emotion of the people or animals holding on to them."  
  
Jongdae looks swiftly at Joonmyun, who presses his hand over the key in his pocket. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Well," Minseok says, "this lady here is very protective of her cubs. But normally she can differentiate between a threat and help. But since she’d been given the key… well… That’s just how Winter Magic is. Summer Magic makes people happy, but Winter Magic…"  
  
This hadn’t been in the script. Jongdae has no idea how to deal with keys that could affect them.  
  
"Winter Magic makes people… sad?" Jongdae frowns. That doesn’t seem right. "Or does it make people  _scared_?"  
  
"Right," Minseok says. "It makes people feel threatened, and alone. There’s nothing worse than being alone  _and_  scared, right?" He holds out the key. "This is what you were looking for, right?" It’s big and silver, this time. No brightly colored jewels. Just complicated spiral patterns leading down to the simple end that would fit into a door.  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae says, stepping forward to take it. Joonmyun pushes past him, taking the key himself. "Joonmyun-hyung…"  
  
"I’ve already got the other key," Joonmyun says, and Minseok looks at him carefully. "I might as well keep this one, too."  
  
"We should spread it out," Jongdae argues. "It doesn’t make sense for one person to deal with all the magic."  
  
"Yes it does," Joonmyun says. "Because one of us has to think rationally." He pulls out the first key and holds them both.  
  
"Here," Minseok says, taking off the leather cord around his neck. "String them on this."  
  
Jongdae takes the cord from Minseok and the keys from Joonmyun, sliding the keys onto it before grudgingly handing it back to Joonmyun. "For the record, I think this is a bad idea."  
  
"What happened to my quiet little choir boy?" Joonmyun teases, and then he swallows, fastening his makeshift charm necklace around his neck. The leather digs into his skin with the weight of the keys, and Jongdae thinks this is a really bad idea. But Joonmyun is the prince, and Jongdae is the sidekick, and Jongdae isn’t sure how well he’d stand up to Joonmyun anyway. Especially if Joonmyun looked at him with those serious eyes and told him it would make him feel better to do things this way. "If it gets too bad, I’ll tell you."  
  
"Promise?" Jongdae asks, and Joonmyun pats his arm and smiles. Then he cocks his head to the side, furrowing his brow, and lunges into the bush next to them, emerging moments later with a squirming ball of lion cub.  
  
Minseok laughs. "I should take this guy back to the Zootopia pens," he says. "He’s probably scared, and getting a little hungry." He takes the cub from Joonmyun, and it immediately curls into him. Minseok probably smells part lion, Jongdae thinks. He’d always thought Minseok looked kind of catlike in the eyes.  
  
"And we should go," Joonmyun says. "It’s getting quite late." The sun will set soon, and Jongdae is tired and thirsty and wants this quest to be over. But then Joonmyun grabs his hand again, and Jongdae forgets all the reasons he’s unhappy because Laciun has at least given him this. "Time is ticking."  
  
"There’s only one key left," Jongdae says. "I guess we’re headed to the Amazon Express."  
  
Joonmyun nods, and they bid farewell to Minseok, who disappears back into the jungle as swiftly as he’d appeared.  
  
"Your voice is really beautiful," Joonmyun says. "Even under pressure, you sing like an angel."  
  
"Thanks," Jongdae says, and Joonmyun looks kind of embarrassed.  
  
"I heard you sing a couple of years ago, actually. At some thing for Sogang."  
  
"Oh," says Jongdae. "That must have been… Buddha’s birthday? We did a festival up there that weekend."  
  
"Yes," Joonmyun says. "Then." He grins. "Even then I thought your voice was amazing. I tried to find you, after the show, to tell you, but you were gone."  
  
That had been the day Jongdae had gone on that one, last, horrible audition.  _You’re not really cut out for this,_  the judge had said.  _You have a fantastic voice but this isn’t for you._  "I was busy, after that show." Jongdae isn’t going to think about that now. It still makes him sick. "Wait, you knew who I was?"  
  
"Didn’t I tell you," says Joonmyun, "that your smile is hard to forget?"  
  
"I…" The idea of Joonmyun having remembered him then, of wanting to talk to him, makes Jongdae so happy he might not need his wings to fly. "Well, I’m really…" he just trails off, and lets Joonmyun guide them out of the Safari Zone, hand linked again with Jongdae’s. Jongdae doesn’t know when that happened, but how could he mind it?  
  
"Have you ever considered singing professionally?" Joonmyun asks, and Jongdae blinks a few times to clear his eyes.  
  
"No," Jongdae says. "It’s not for me."

  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
"I think I’m going to be too tired to study for my finals tonight." If they get home tonight. Jongdae doesn’t allow himself to dwell on that possibility.  
  
"But I don’t get home until midnight," Joonmyun says. "And I have a car. So you must get home even later."  
  
"Yeah," Jongdae shrugs. "But I still have to study. I have my first final on Monday and the other on Wednesday."  
  
"When do you sleep?" Joonmyun steps over a fallen log, and Jongdae hurriedly does too.  
  
"The beginnings of semesters aren’t so bad. I only take two classes, so it’s not like school is swamping me."  
  
"You should take care of yourself," says Joonmyun.  
  
Jongdae bats his eyelashes. "You should take care of me," he says, and then there’s a creeping horror as he realizes what he’s done. "Sorry, ignore that. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable."  
  
"Why would I be uncomfortable?" Joonmyun asks. "It’s not like you’re actually hitting on me." He pushes aside a swath of branches, and Jongdae hears rushing water that he’s ninety-nine percent sure is not in his head.  
  
"Right," Jongdae says. "You’re right."  
  
Hahaha, it’s all a joke, because Jongdae would never have the guts to make a move - a real one, anyway - on Kim Joonmyun, the sweet boy he’s liked since high school who has turned into a complicated man that Jongdae likes just as much.  
  
"I think we’re here," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae bumps into Joonmyun’s back at the sudden stop.  
  
The river appears before them, looking a lot bigger than it does when it’s a water ride. "Well, this looks sufficiently terrifying," Jongdae says.  
  
"It looks fun," Joonmyun says. "Or it would be, if it were safety approved, like the ride." He undoes a couple of buttons on his shirt, revealing a pale throat. "I’ve never ridden the Amazon Express."  
  
"You were such a deprived child," Jongdae says. "You’ve never  _lived_."  
  
"I’m living now, right?" Joonmyun laughs, leaning back into Jongdae’s chest. The thin membrane of his wings tickle. "Aren’t I?"  
  
"So one extreme adventure to make up for all the little ones you missed?"  
  
"Exactly," Joonmyun says. "It’s funny, actually. When we were in the Magic Tree, I wished for… well, it’s almost like the Magic Tree gave me what I asked for." He curls his chin down. "Do you think we can drink that water?"  
  
"Guaranteed to be safer than Kris’s coffee," Jongdae answers, and Joonmyun laughs and laughs. Jongdae finds that more magical than the glowing blooms hanging from vines around him or the keys hanging heavy from Joonmyun’s neck.  
  
Joonmyun drops to his knees and splashes his face with water collected from the rushing river with cupped hands. "Even the water is magic," he says, and Jongdae joins him at the river’s edge, letting the clear water wash the sweat from his skin and slip between his lips onto his dry tongue. "Doesn’t it smell sweet?"  
  
"Yeah, "Jongdae says, and he has to look away from Joonmyun, because water is trickling down the column of Joonmyun’s throat, a slow seduction Jongdae does not need right now. "It tastes sweet, too."  
  
"Where do you think the key is?" Joonmyun leans further forward, squinting his eyes to try and look down to the riverbed. The water is far too fast for that, Jongdae thinks, and the rocks scattered throughout break the water and create foam that makes the river opaque.  
  
"Hopefully not under the water," Joonmyun says. "Do you think..."  
  
"I think we should follow the river all the way down," Jongdae says. "In the show, we staged this bit at the exit of the ride, not the entrance."  
  
"That makes sense."  
  
"You know," Jongdae says, standing up and wiping the dirt from his bare knees, "I should have fought harder with Yixing to have it at the entrance. I thought it might be nice to have it while people were waiting in line."  
  
"Now look," says Joonmyun. "Yixing’s artistic vision has lost us valuable time."  
  
Jongdae chuckles and offers Joonmyun his hand to pull him up. He pulls too hard, and Joonmyun falls into him, mouth pressing lightly to Jongdae’s chin before he jerks quickly back.  
  
"Sorry," they both say at once, and then Jongdae laughs nervously and brings a hand up to play with his own hair to distract himself. His chin tingles where Joonmyun’s lips brushed, and he can’t help the way his eyes dart down to Joonmyun’s pink mouth, with his pretty thin lips that Jongdae had spent most of adolescence dreaming of kissing.  
  
"I just overbalanced," Joonmyun says.  
  
"It’s not like you were really hitting on me, right?" Jongdae says, and Joonmyun swallows before he smiles that smile Jongdae is coming to know means he isn’t really happy.  
  
"Right," Joonmyun says, and grabs hold of the keys around his neck for the briefest of moments. "Let’s go."  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
The first time that Jongdae had met Kim Joonmyun, he'd sworn the whole world had stopped spinning. Joonmyun had greeted him with a welcoming smile and put a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, and said "welcome to the choir club," and Jongdae had meant to say  _it’s good to be here_  or  _no one wears their shirt buttoned up all the way, dweeb_ , but all that had come out was an embarrassingly shrill "thanks" that made it seem like his balls hadn’t even dropped yet.  
  
And even then, even though Jongdae was so full of hope still, about singing and about life and about following his dreams… Even then, Jongdae knew he was destined to suffer from a one-sided crush. Not just because Joonmyun was perfect—and he was, straight-laced and friendly and popular and smart and rich. But because Jongdae knew that the likelihood of him even being interested in a boy instead of a girl, some equally perfect girl he could show off at his high-class family’s fancy Gangnam parties, was so low that it might as well be nothing.  
  
It still stings now, as Joonmyun walks slightly ahead of him down the edge of the riverbed. Maybe it stings more, because now he knows that Joonmyun isn’t perfect, but Jongdae’s still got his heart trying to beat louder than Everland’s fanfare drums every time Joonmyun smiles a certain way at him.  
  
Joonmyun has his hand in his pocket. Jongdae thinks he’s fingering that petal again, and he would kill to know what it means to Joonmyun.  
  
"The sun is setting," says Joonmyun. "We’re running out of time."  
  
"There’s only one key left," Jongdae says. "We’ll save your princess."  
  
"She’s not my princess," Joonmyun says. "I’m not so into damsels in distress."  
  
"What’s your type?" Jongdae asks, his inner masochist forcing the words out of his mouth.  
  
"I like people who are kind," Joonmyun says. "People who make me laugh."  
  
"That’s… vague," Jongdae says. "Pretty much every girl north of the river."  
  
"Don’t hate on Gangnam girls," Joonmyun says. "They throw amazing dinner parties and are great at accessorizing."  
  
"You have to have more qualifications than that," says Jongdae, slowly reaching out to drag a hand along Joonmyun’s left wing. He gives Joonmyun plenty of chance to pull away from him, but he doesn’t. Instead, Joonmyun wrinkles his forehead, and hesitates before speaking.  
  
"I like good singers, too," Joonmyun says quietly, and Jongdae hates the way his chest tightens.  
  
"That’s just having taste," Jongdae says, and looks up at the sunset to hide his blush.  
  
"The river is widening out." Joonmyun stops, fussing with his hair, fingers pulling at the longer pieces from unconscious habit. "What about you?"  
  
"What?" Jongdae is trying to see the end of the river, and Joonmyun’s question is unexpected. "What about me?"  
  
"What’s your type of girl?" Joonmyun’s hand is still in his pocket. "You never had a girlfriend, in high school."  
  
"You did," Jongdae says. "She was taller than you."  
  
Joonmyun covers his mouth when he laughs this time. Jongdae had sort of enjoyed it more when he’d forgotten, because he likes the shape of Joonmyun’s teeth, because they’re perfectly straight but not quite even. "But I’m asking about you," Joonmyun says, and he pushes a branch of huge leaves aside to reveal a gigantic lake. All the water rushes in from the river, and calms as it ripples in. There’s a long pier with two small boats tied to it, too, made of the same iridescent wood as Jongdae has gotten accustomed to seeing in the tree trunks. "Is this the end?"  
  
"I don’t have a type of girl," Jongdae says. "And yes, I think it is."  
  
There are two men sitting at the edge of the pier, bare legs in the water as they laugh.  
  
"I don’t know them," Jongdae says.  
  
"I do," replies Joonmyun. "They’re my co-workers." A pause. "Were. Were my co-workers."  
  
"At the law firm?"  
  
"Yes." His hand automatically comes up to button his collar, and Jongdae wants to smack his hand down.  
  
"You don’t have to do that, you know."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Worry so much about appearances."  
  
Joonmyun’s hand falls. "I hadn’t even realized…" He laughs. "I’m in the middle of a rainforest and I’m trying to button my shirt." He laughs louder. It’s not nice. Jongdae doesn’t like it. "My parents trained me too well."  
  
"We’re giving you the childhood you never had, remember?" Jongdae grabs a handful of Joonmyun’s shirt and tugs at it, until one side of his shirt is untucked from his pants, hanging over his belt. "Children don’t mind getting a bit messy, Your Highness."  
  
"You’re under the impression that I’m naturally neat," Joonmyun says. "Can I tell you a secret?"  
  
Jongdae keeps pulling at Joonmyun’s shirt, ignoring the flash of pretty pale skin and the dusting of hair on his flat stomach as he finishes untucking his shirt. "Sure," he says.  
  
"I don’t hang up any of my clothes," Joonmyun says. "I leave them in piles around my apartment until I run completely out of clean things, and then I take them all to the dry cleaners and pay exorbitant prices for other people to take care of my wardrobe."  
  
Jongdae gapes. " _Really_?" He tries to imagine Joonmyun’s messy, clothes-strewn apartment, and laughs. "It seems so incongruent with your whole persona."  
  
"That’s because it’s a persona." Joonmyun fixes his hair reflexively, and Jongdae laughs. "It’s who I’m supposed to be, not who I am."  
  
Jongdae is probably seeing things, but the keys around Joonmyun’s neck seem to pulse with energy. Jongdae doesn’t like it.  _Winter Magic makes people feel threatened, and alone._  
  
"And who are you?" Jongdae lets go of Joonmyun’s shirt with a light-hearted smile, and looks back over at the two men on the pier, who are looking back at them, now. They’ve stalled enough.  
  
"The guy who plays the Summer Prince in the Everland Summer Festival show," says Joonmyun. "And wishes the real world was as magical as this one."  
  
"I always admired the you I thought you were." Jongdae scrubs his hands on his shorts. "But I like this you even better." Joonmyun’s eyes are suspiciously bright. Jongdae doesn’t know why. It’s not like his opinion should even matter. Joonmyun’s just a big softie. That part, at least, isn’t image at all. "Shall we?"  
  
"Yes," Joonmyun says, and the light from the keys dims into nothing. Joonmyun’s hand sneaks back into his pocket, and Jongdae looks back at the pier.  
  
The taller of the two sighs as they approach. "What do you want, Your Highness?" He calls it out, and Joonmyun stops, still meters away.  
  
"I think you know!" Jongdae yells back.  
  
Joonmyun elbows him, not hard enough to hurt but enough to silence him. "Let me handle it," he says.  
  
"If you say so." Jongdae’s left eyebrow lifts, and Joonmyun offers him the tiniest of smiles.  
  
"I let you  _sing_  at a  _lion_ ," Joonmyun says. "In the script, it’s the prince that wins the last key from the faerie lords. Let me."  
  
"Fair enough," Jongdae says. "But if you need any help, hyung, I’m right here." He isn’t sure if he should, but he reaches up and lightly touches the key. "You’re not alone, okay?"  
  
Joonmyun’s face blooms like the flowers climbing the walls of the Castle of Oz had, when they’d first gotten here to this alternate world. "I’ll keep it in mind," he says, and walks the rest of the way, Jongdae a few steps behind.  
  
"I need the key, Changmin-hyung."  
  
"Why do you need the key?" The other man speaks now, his hair falling across his forehead as he smirks up at Joonmyun. Neither of them make a move to rise from their seats at the edge of the pier, so Joonmyun walks over to sit down beside them. He tucks his legs up, wrapping his arms around them. He looks so small next to the other men. There’s not enough space for Jongdae to sit beside him, so he stays back.  
  
"I have to rescue the Summer Princess, Kyuhyun-hyung," Joonmyun explains. "But you know that."  
  
"And then marry her." Kyuhyun kicks out with his feet, sloshing water. The legs of Joonmyun’s pants get damp in places.  
  
"We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it," Joonmyun says. "What if I want to go and, I dunno, take care of lions with Minseok in the Safari Zone instead of marrying the Summer Princess?"  
  
"You can’t," Changmin says. "You have obligations." His wings are white. The silver in them matches the silver embroidery on his tunic.  
  
"You’re a prince," says Kyuhyun. "You were born to stay in the castle and marry a princess."  
  
Jongdae can’t help but think about the conversation they’d had earlier today, when Joonmyun had talked about waking up because he was supposed to, not because he wanted to. Joonmyun as a prince forced to stay in his castle is surprisingly apt, Jongdae decides, just like Jongdae forever being the sidekick on someone else’s adventure, not destined to end up with the prince, is the perfect role for him.  
  
"What if I don’t want to be a prince?" Joonmyun is rubbing at a spot of wetness just below his knee with his thumb. "What if I want to be  _more_  than a prince? Do more than grow up and marry a princess and live every day exactly the same as the day before?"  
  
"Everyone wants to be a prince," Changmin says. "But you are one and you want to throw it away."  
  
"I want to do something different with my life to what everyone else in my family is doing or has done," Joonmyun says. "It’s selfish, but it’s what I want."  
  
"You’ve got your head in the clouds," Kyuhyun says. His wings, black as night, shimmer with light even in the twilight. "You’re being ridiculous."  
  
Joonmyun stands up, and Jongdae walks down the pier, closer, in case Joonmyun needs his help. He can tell it’s not the first time Joonmyun has heard something like that, from the way his smile pulls wider with ease, even if there’s nothing behind it. The keys glitter around his neck. Jongdae blinks, and they’re normal again. He might have imagined it. He doesn’t doubt his imagination is capable of anything, now.  
  
"I used to think that growing up meant accepting what life handed to you and making the best of it," Joonmyun says. "I did what I was supposed to, smiled when I was supposed to. For seven years I did everything right, and if I wasn’t happy, well, I wasn’t miserable." He takes both hands and ruffles his hair, messing it up completely. It stands up in a million directions, the reddish tints and the blonder ones more visible in the disarray. "But I don’t think that’s true, anymore."  
  
Shuffling forward, Jongdae brushes the back of Joonmyun’s hand with the back of his own. It’s subtle, but it’s enough to make Joonmyun continue.  
  
"Now, I know it’s silly to think growing up is the same as giving up." He laughs. "And if people tell me I look at the world like a child… Maybe it’s because it’s the first time in my life I’m allowing myself to look around and see possibility instead of inevitability. And I don’t think that’s childlike at all."  
  
His words are like a punch to Jongdae’s stomach. He thinks about Jongin, and Zitao, and even Kyungsoo, who all have dreams to pursue and look forward to each and every day, waiting to bite into each new morning like it’s one of the fresh peaches that that are sweetest in late July.  
  
And this, Jongdae thinks, might be the most wondrous thing of all about Joonmyun. That he’s spent so long trapped in a box so similar to the one Jongdae fears and he’s climbed up and out of it, reaching out and grabbing at life with both hands and holding on. That he still finds the joy in wearing a silly costume and singing at the top of his lungs.  
  
It is the stupidest thing, maybe, for Jongdae to let himself like Joonmyun this much, but he doesn’t really have a choice in it.  
  
Changmin strokes his chin thoughtfully. "What do you think?" he asks Kyuhyun, and Kyuhyun nods.  
  
"You can give him the key," Kyuhyun says, and Changmin holds up his hands. Between them appears a bronze key, with golden flowers crawling up it on moving vines.  
  
"Take it," Changmin says, and Joonmyun reaches out to take the key. It goes still at his touch. "Now hurry up and get out of here. Save your princess and tame lions or whatever. We’ve got important things to discuss."  
  
"Thank you," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae puts his hand on the small of Joonmyun’s back to lead him away.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
The sun has completely set now, only the fringes of dusk remaining.  
  
"Do you know how to get to Aesop’s Fable house from here?" Joonmyun jokes. They are the first words between them in minutes.  
  
"The fastest way is down near the main gates," Jongdae says. "It’s clear across the park to Aesop’s Fable House, anyway, but at least we’ll avoid Carnival Square."  
  
"You’re quiet," Joonmyun says. He’s looped the third key on his leather cord, and now all three of them hang across his chest, like some kind of prize. "What’s wrong?"  
  
"I tried out for JYP," Jongdae says. "Four times."  
  
"I didn’t know that." Joonmyun grabs Jongdae’s arm and drags his hand down until he’s loosely holding Jongdae’s wrist.  
  
"I don’t know why I kept going back," continues Jongdae. "I guess it’s because each time they’d say, ‘you’ve got such nice vocals’ or ‘you’re very talented,’ and I’d think  _I was so close, so next time, surely…_ " He laughs. "Which is silly, because if they’d wanted my vocals, wanted me, they would have taken me the second or third time, after my voice settled. Trained me themselves."  
  
"So you gave up on singing professionally because of that?" Joonmyun’s thumb strokes slowly, comfortingly, at the bone of Jongdae’s wrist, and Jongdae soaks up the attention.  
  
"Not because of that," Jongdae says. "I probably could have taken that." He lets his eyes wander, across Joonmyun’s collarbones and up his neck to his jaw. He seems to glow in the dim evening. "It was the way my mother acted when I told her about it. ‘Good’, she said. ‘Now it’s out of your system, and you to go to college for something normal. It’s about time for you to stop thinking about silly things and grow up, don’t you think, Jongdae?’"  
  
Joonmyun’s hand tightens, and then slips down. He laces their fingers together, and Jongdae has almost gotten used to how well Joonmyun’s fingers slot between his own. "So you thought…"  
  
"I thought maybe I had been deluding myself, you know? That I could really do the thing I love as a job. That maybe I could be really happy like that, singing for other people. And me failing the auditions was some kind of reality check." Jongdae uses their linked hands to pull Joonmyun down Main Street, and into the Monkey Valley.  
  
Tiny heads poke out from the trees, tails flicking out and odd screeches alerting monkeys further down the path about the visitors, but none of the monkeys came down to greet them. Darkness has fallen heavy on their magical land, and without the amusement park lights, the night could be sinister. But it isn’t. It feels more like a quilt that Jongdae can hide his head under as he tells this to Joonmyun.  
  
"But I decided to try one more time," Jongdae says. "’This is the last time’, I told myself. ‘After this, you won’t put yourself through this again.’" Jongdae’s voice wavers. "I had a different woman, that time. She smiled at me a lot. I made it through the first round, and then the second. We had to make recordings of ourselves singing, you know? They took us to these small rooms."  
  
The trees shift and sway around them. Jongdae looks up and sees the stars. This could be romantic, too, he thinks. Holding hands with Joonmyun as they walk side by side, with no one but each other, the stars glimmering in the sky and just enough breeze to cool skin that had burned hot all day under the sun. Joonmyun is shivering. Jongdae could wrap an arm around him, avoiding his wings, and pull him closer into his own body heat. He could…  
  
Really, though, Jongdae is trying his best not to throw up, and Joonmyun is not his, not like that.  
  
"She recorded me singing." Jongdae’s voice carries through the valley, so he lowers it to a whisper. "Then she told me to sit down next to her so we could discuss the tape."  
  
Joonmyun’s nails dig into Jongdae’s palm. He realizes he’s holding Joonmyun’s hand too tightly.  
  
"So then she said, ‘Jongdae, you’re not quite ready to be an idol.’" The air is sweet. Jongdae can taste the honeysuckle in it. Summer nights have always had a charm about them. "And she put her hand on my thigh and added ‘but I could be persuaded…’" Jongdae can’t make any more words come out after that, but Joonmyun’s tiny gasp makes it clear he understands.  
  
"Oh, Jongdae…"  
  
"But you…" Jongdae stops walking so he can look at Joonmyun. "You said, just now, that you look at the world as possibilities instead of inevitabilities."  
  
"I do," Joonmyun says. "I really do." He has his free hand in his pocket again, and Jongdae doesn’t get what’s so special about that damn petal.  
  
"You see the good in things in a way I haven’t been able to in a long time." Jongdae smiles. "I really admire that you’re able to do that. It’s kind of… awesome, hyung."  
  
"I think you’re pretty awesome, too," Joonmyun says. "I really do." He lets go of Jongdae’s hand, and awkwardly slips a hand around Jongdae’s waist. Jongdae hadn’t realized how much he wanted a hug until then. He wraps Joonmyun up in his arms and hugs him so tight that Joonmyun has no choice but to bury his face in Jongdae’s neck, his lips tickling at Jongdae's throat as he breathes and hold on.  
  
"Thank you for listening," Jongdae says. Joonmyun’s wings quiver, and Jongdae traces them with shaking fingers. His chest, which had been feeling tight and uncomfortable since Joonmyun’s speech to Changmin and Kyuhyun at the pier, explodes outward, and it feels like his heart has shattered his ribs and like he must be nothing but a ghost in Joonmyun’s embrace.  
  
"That’s that hyungs are for," Joonmyun says. "What friends are for."  
  
And friends is all they’ll ever be, but Jongdae should be,  _is_ , grateful for that.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
The Magic Tree is huge, towering far higher than Jongdae ever imagined it would. The branches spread out into infinity and the nightflowers nestled in its foliage seem to open just for them.  
  
"Halfway there," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae nods.  
  
"Yeah, halfway there."  
  
Approaching the tree carefully, Joonmyun splays his hand flat across the bark. "You can feel the magic."  
  
"It is the  _Magic Tree_ , hyung," Jongdae says. He still feels unsure in his words, unbalanced and strangely light from their previous conversation. "That can’t be surprising."  
  
"I could feel the magic in it, even when Laciun was still just Everland." He rests both hands against the tree trunk now. "I think it  _does_  grant wishes, Jongdae."  
  
"That’s just what they tell the kids, Joonmyun-hyung." Joonmyun’s wings are almost invisible, but they glitter when Joonmyun moves.  
  
Slowly, Jongdae stretches his own hand against the tree, right next to Joonmyun’s, their sides pressed together, and he does feel the magic pulsing beneath his fingertips, burning hot up his forearms and lingering in his chest.  
  
"I’m sorry, Jongdae."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"It’s my wish that got us into this, I think." Jongdae leans until his head is resting on Joonmyun’s shoulder, and Joonmyun turns just enough that his cheek mashes lightly into Jongdae’s forehead. "When you dragged me into the tree, to the interior, it felt like…" He sighs, and Jongdae feels that sigh everywhere they touch. "It was exciting. Like little boys playing explorer in a tree fort or something. And I wished… I wished we could play explorer in real life, too. Because it would be fun to do something like that with you."  
  
Joonmyun and Jongdae had fit shoulder to shoulder under the tree, and they’d both made a wish. "It’s not your fault."  
  
"My wish got us here," Joonmyun says. "And put both of us in danger." The keys around his neck are glowing again, and Jongdae is certain it’s real. Bad magic. "I’m so sorry."  
  
"We both made wishes."  
  
Joonmyun breathes out, and it moves Jongdae’s hair and tickles his nose. "What did you wish for?"  
  
"I wished that I could have a day to get to know you," says Jongdae. "To take a day off from real life to get to know you." He lifts his head. "I think we both got ourselves into this mess together."  
  
Joonmyun’s eyes are closed. His eyelashes are dark against his pale cheeks, and his lips are curled up slightly. He’s so beautiful, and Jongdae has always thought so, but it’s worse now that he knows just how beautiful Joonmyun is on the inside, too.  
  
Jongdae can berate himself over and over again for setting himself up for heartbreak like this, but the truth is, he doesn’t regret liking Joonmyun. How could anyone regret liking Joonmyun, who is kind to both the people he knows and the people he doesn’t, and wants to reach out and take the things the world hasn’t given him with both hands? How could anyone regret liking Joonmyun, whose smile could melt ice in the winter with its warmth and whose eyes look past the bad to see all of the good?  
  
So even if Jongdae’s heart is taking up permanent residence in his throat, suffocating him slowly from all the things he feels but will never say, that’s all right. It will just be one more thing so close he can taste it, but at least he gets to be close at all.  
  
"It could have been worse," says Joonmyun. Jongdae can feel his smile. "I could have wished we were fish."  
  
Jongdae  _is_  a fish. A goldfish. Swimming around and around his bowl and every facet of glass is something lovely about Joonmyun that traps him in.  
  
"And I could have wished I understood  _Baekhyun_ ," replies Jongdae, and Joonmyun laughs. It sings through the evening, and Jongdae memorizes the sound.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
It takes them another hour to reach the Fable House. Jongdae doesn’t know why distances he runs in a few minutes take hours here, but it’s probably part of the magic that makes this a real quest, and not just an amusement park come to life.  
  
The house is lit from the inside, the glow of candlelight peeking out the window.  
  
It’s huge. Huge enough that the door is two body-lengths tall and the locks, three big, ominous locks, sit well above their heads.  
  
"I don’t remember this door being so tall," Joonmyun says faintly.  
  
"Well," Jongdae says, "we knew it couldn’t be a small lock. Those keys are as big as a human hand." He wraps his arm around Joonmyun’s neck and unties the cord, catching the keys in his other hand. They clang together. "I’ve got this."  
  
"Don’t touch them," Joonmyun says, making a grab for the keys, but Jongdae dances back, smiling.  
  
"You’re not tall enough to reach," Jongdae says. "I’m not much taller than you but…" He stands on his tiptoes. "I’m just tall enough."  
  
"The keys make you…" Joonmyun frowns, worry contorting his smooth features. Jongdae could maybe get away with smoothing away those wrinkles with his thumb, but he’d have to get close enough that Joonmyun would probably see the devotion in his eyes and that would be… Bad.  
  
"I’ll only be touching them for a few moments," Jongdae says, tightening his hand around the keys. "Not much that could happen in that short a time."  
  
He cranes his neck to look at the three locks, lined up one under the other. Each lock reflects the key that fits into it, he thinks, and they go in order. He stands on his toes again, and stretches his arms up as far as he can, sliding the golden key into the first lock, and lets gravity pull him down and turn the key with it. The tumbler makes a loud click, and behind him, Joonmyun exhales.  
  
"See?" Jongdae grins over his shoulder. Joonmyun looks as golden as the first key in the light leaking from the house. "One down."  
  
"It can’t be this easy," Joonmyun says. "Isn’t there a curse?"  
  
"The prince opens the door," answers Jongdae, "and the Winter Prince tries to cast a spell on him. But the Summer Prince avoids being cursed, remember? His spirit of determination protects him." Jongdae shakes his head to get the hair out of his eyes. "Plus, I’m not the prince. I’m the sidekick."  
  
"You’re my fellow explorer," is Joonmyun’s reply, and Jongdae slides the silver key home with much more ease.  
  
When he turns this key, it seems to sigh its release, and Jongdae bites lightly on his tongue as he fumbles with the bronze key.  
  
The bronze key feels the heaviest of them all. He has to push it into the lock, and it screeches when he tries to turn it.  
  
"Is it—"  
  
"I’ve got it," Jongdae says, and gives a firm twist with both hands. The lock screams at him, high and shrill, and he tries to let go to cover his ears but his hands are stuck.  
  
A strange white mist pours out of the lock. Jongdae chokes on it. It seeps into his nose and down his throat and it suffocates him. "Don’t breathe that in!" Joonmyun yells, and Jongdae thinks it’s a little late for that.  
  
And then the white mist is gone, and Jongdae can inhale again. He takes a giant gulp of air into his starved lungs.  
  
The door cracks open. Light flares in his eyes.  
  
"Are you all right?" Joonmyun asks. His hands are everywhere. "You should have let me do it, Jongdae."  
  
Jongdae opens his mouth to reassure Joonmyun that he’s okay, but nothing comes out. Not a single sound. He tries again, and his throat works around the words but still nothing comes out.  
  
"Jongdae?"  
  
Turning panicked eyes at his hyung, Jongdae grabs at his throat. His hands sting, burned from the key, but that doesn’t stop him from clawing at his neck. His feet knock into the two discarded keys. The bronze one is still in the door.  
  
" _Jongdae_?"  
  
Jongdae can’t answer him, because the white mist has stolen his voice.  
  


⚘⚘⚘

  
  
One constant in Jongdae’s life has always been singing. In the shower, walking to school, making dinner for himself alone… Everywhere Jongdae goes, there’s a song on his lips. He loves to sing. For others, for himself. He loves it best when he hits soaring high notes and his audience cheers.  
  
The panic wells up in him fast and fierce at thought that this might be permanent. That he might never hear that sound again.  
  
Joonmyun pulls at Jongdae’s hands, trapping them in his own as Jongdae tries to scream. There is still silence, and Jongdae lets himself sag into Joonmyun.  
  
"Can you answer me, Jongdae-yah?" Joonmyun asks, and Jongdae shakes his head, nose rubbing against Joonmyun’s shoulder as Joonmyun’s hands carefully stroke his wings.  
  
Then there are heavy footsteps that seem to ring even louder in the face of Jongdae’s quiet. "You were supposed open the door, Prince Joonmyun, not him."  
  
Jongdae looks up, and Chanyeol is looking back at him, kind of sheepish. He’s wearing all black, but he’s got a different sort of wings than Jongdae’s seen before, like fire sprouting from his back.  
  
"What have you done to him?" Joonmyun says. "Undo it  _right now._ "  
  
"No can do," says Chanyeol. "That’s not how Winter Magic works." Jongdae aches to touch his throat, but Joonmyun’s hands are still clutching his tightly. "This is a one way spell."  
  
 _Winter magic makes you feel threatened and alone,_  Minseok had told them, and Jongdae understands that with crystal clear clarity now.  
  
In a lot of ways, Jongdae’s voice had been stolen three years ago in that private audition room, and this physical manifestation of it is just the excuse he needed to keep Kyungsoo from inviting him to auditions.  
  
But in the most important way, Jongdae has never felt more afraid. Jongdae doesn’t know who he is without singing. Without his voice. He’s never had to know, because he’s always had it, even when he didn’t want to use it because even the simplest melodies called bile up the back of his esophagus.  
  
"Is there anyone who can fix it?" Joonmyun is shaking. That fact is enough to drag Jongdae out of his fear and into this moment, now. "I can’t just… that spell was meant for me and I can’t just…"  
  
Chanyeol grins, big and toothy, and he looks so dumb and harmless. "Sure. He can," he says. "He can fix it." He claps his hands, and Joonmyun seems as much at a loss as Jongdae.  
  
"How?"  
  
"And now that we’re here, I can tell the spell wouldn’t have worked in my favor with you, anyway." Chanyeol wrinkles his nose up like a curious puppy. "It wouldn’t have gotten me what I wanted." He holds up his hand, and that white wintery mist curls up in Chanyeol’s open palm. In it appears a small glass ball. "Right now all I have is someone else’s voice." He preens. "I quite like my voice the way it is, but this is my bargaining chip."  
  
"What does the spell do, and how can Jongdae fix it?"   
  
Jongdae focuses on the conversation, but his eyes are glued to that ball, where his voice shifts and bucks against its prison walls.  
  
"The spell," says Chanyeol, "takes the thing you deem the most important part of you." He tosses the ball in the air, and the shimmering white mist cradles it. "The only way to get that part of you back is to trade something of equal value in exchange for it." He laughs, and turns around, walking into the house. Joonmyun follows him, and Jongdae follows listlessly. "I was hoping to snag the prince, you see. Because I wanted him to trade with me." Chanyeol sighs, stopping, and Jongdae spares the briefest glance for the warm rug under their feet and the gorgeous wood of the furniture before he goes back to watching Chanyeol with great care. "Instead of getting something of your servant’s—"  
  
"He’s my friend," Joonmyun corrects. "Not a servant." His voice wavers.  
  
Jongdae pulls his hands free, and clasps their hands palm to palm. Joonmyun is still shaking. Jongdae squeezes Joonmyun’s hand until Joonmyun looks at him. Jongdae lifts an eyebrow,  _don’t be a sap, Joonmyun-hyung_ , and Joonmyun laughs enough to break the string of shivers going up and down his spine.  
  
"How can you still be such a smartass when you can’t even insult me aloud?" Joonmyun whispers, and his hand goes back to his pocket. "Are you trying to reassure me right now, Kim Jongdae?"  
  
Jongdae swallows, and looks back at his voice.  _One of us has to be calm, and you’re the hyung._  
  
"So, what is your most valuable thing, munchkin?" Chanyeol leans forward, invading Jongdae’s personal space, and taps him on the forehead with a big stubby finger. "What are you willing to give up to get your voice back?"  
  
"Why are you doing this?"  
  
Chanyeol crosses his arms, and rocks back on his heels. His fiery wings surge and then quiet, like a fire that has been fed a little too much fuel. "Because you’ve come here to take my most valuable thing from me."  
  
 _What?_  
  
"What do you… I’m just fulfilling my quest?" Joonmyun tenses from head to toe. "Find the keys, defeat the Winter Prince, and save the Summer Princess before the clock strikes eleven."  
  
Chanyeol points to the clock above the fireplace. "It’s nine-thirty."  
  
"I didn’t come here to take anything from you, is my point!"   
  
Jongdae nods his head fervently, but Chanyeol is still looking at them seriously, his mouth in the full pout he usually reserves for days when he gets a zit or thinks his hair looks bad.  
  
"But you did," Chanyeol says. "You came here to take my Summer Princess away, and so I set up the spell to make sure you couldn’t."  
  
Jongdae’s eyes are going to fall out of his head and roll down Main Street. He wants to exclaim that Krystal is  _way_  out of Chanyeol’s league, but he can’t. And that’s a sobering thought that takes his shock and shoves it back down under his misery.  
  
He doesn’t know if he has anything to offer that means as much to him as his voice. He can’t think of a single thing that’s as much a part of him. And if he has nothing to trade, he’ll never be able to break the spell.  
  
Jongdae will sing and no one will hear him, and it’s just like failing his auditions, all over again.  
  
"Since it was me you wanted, can I trade for Jongdae’s voice?" Joonmyun sets the words out deliberately, and Jongdae feels each and every one of them in the grip Joonmyun still has on his hand.  
  
"Only something of equal value to you as Jongdae’s voice is to him," Chanyeol warns. "Only that will break the curse."  
  
Joonmyun nods, and hesitates. "Something…" His eyes flicker to Jongdae, and he seems to freeze. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the flower petal. It has stayed crisp and perfect, and it still seems to glow. "Will this do?"  
  
Chanyeol looks at it closely, and picks it up from Joonmyun’s fingers. Joonmyun holds on to it for a moment, reluctant to let it go, and then drops his hand, relinquishing the petal to Chanyeol.  
  
White mist curls from Chanyeol’s fingers, wrapping up the petal. Before their eyes it withers. From his other hand, Chanyeol produces the glass ball with Jongdae’s voice inside. "It’s a fair trade," he says.  
  
The ball dissolves, and that white mist rushes at Jongdae, sliding into his mouth. It’s cold, colder than ice as it sinks down in him, but when he whines, there’s sound.  
  
"Jongdae, can you say something? Anything?"  
  
"I’m not sure you want me to say  _anything_ ," Jongdae rasps, and Joonmyun laughs. "What if I call you a total cheeseball?"  
  
"I knew that’s what you were thinking!"  
  
"I’m not predictable," Jongdae says. The relief coursing through him gives him tunnel vision. All he sees is Joonmyun’s smile and Joonmyun’s crinkly eyes and Joonmyun’s soft hair and Joonmyun’s everything. "You just know what a big sap you are."  
  
"Ah, ah, ah, I know your ways now, Jongdae." Joonmyun’s hand sneaks into Jongdae’s hair, running a hand through it. Jongdae feels fourteen, a full body flush consuming him at the simple gesture of affection. He never could have imagined it could be like this between them. Has it really only been a day? "Insults mean I’ve leveled up on your friendship ladder."  
  
Chanyeol coughs conspicuously, and Jongdae turns to look at him. "Look, you big oaf, I happen to  _need_  my voice."  
  
"And I need my princess," Chanyeol replies. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."  
  
"In every world we meet in, you are extremely self-centered," Jongdae says, only loud enough for Joonmyun to hear, and Joonmyun laughs.  
  
A door opens, and Krystal walks into the room, her bubblegum skirts swirling around her legs. "What’s going on out here?"  
  
"Prince Joonmyun has come to rescue you from my evil clutches."  
  
Krystal smiles. She’s as pretty here as she is in real life. Jongdae feels sweaty and gross in her presence. "You’re a sweetheart, but I don’t need any help. I’m perfectly happy here with Prince Chanyeol." She waves her fingers and Chanyeol immediately goes to the other side of the room and brings back a glass of water. "I’m even teaching him how to fetch."  
  
"How do I rescue the princess if she doesn’t need rescuing?" asks Joonmyun, looking at Chanyeol and then Krystal, before turning to look at Jongdae, a lost expression on his face.  
  
Jongdae doesn’t know. If they were doing the show, Joonmyun would be challenging the Winter Prince to a battle of magic, but Joonmyun doesn’t have any magic and Chanyeol looks far more interested in making Krystal laugh and fixing his hair than he is in fighting them. "We’re working off-book," Jongdae says. "Improv."  
  
"I’m still settling into the script," says Joonmyun. "I don’t know if I’m prepared for these kinds of curveballs."  
  
Jongdae grins at him, and Joonmyun’s cheekbones flush. Jongdae supposes the fire is pretty bright and warm. He flaps his wings at Joonmyun. "You’ll have to make do, Your Highness." Edging just a little closer, he adds "You’ve been really good so far. Kris might have to keep you on staff after this stellar performance."  
  
And Joonmyun’s grin slowly fades, his hand going to his pocket and seeming to remember that nothing’s there.  
  
"In my opinion," Chanyeol says, "you’ve already saved your princess of the day."  
  
"Where is Baekhyun when you need him?" mutters Jongdae, and he does not meet Joonmyun’s eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

⚘⚘⚘

 

Convincing Chanyeol that they had to take the Summer Princess back to the Castle of Oz in order for Joonmyun’s quest to be complete is harder than Jongdae had expected.

"I guess magical quests are important," Chanyeol agrees, finally, and Krystal pats his head and says "good boy."

It’s only a short walk to the Castle of Oz. Jongdae feels like he’s walked a million kilometers, and it seems so silly to end up back in the same place, but he also wants to complete this absurd task they’d been set upon.

He hums as they walk, loving the way his voice heeds his summon. Thankful to still have it.

Joonmyun is withdrawn, though, standing next to Jongdae but feeling very far away.

"What did you give to Chanyeol?" Jongdae asks.

Joonmyun cringes, fingers coming up to toy with the collar of his shirt, skating down to pull at the buttons. "A flower petal."

"I know that." Jongdae grazes his fingers along the edge of Joonmyun’s wing. Joonmyun smiles, a tiny thing that turns Jongdae’s insides to the same jelly as that dangerous ship ride that Jongin loves even though it makes him sick every single time. "What was with that petal? And don’t tell me any confusing French words." 

"Sehun taught me those words," Joonmyun says. "Well, kind of. He doesn’t really speak any French, and neither do I, but we looked it up on Wikipedia after session one day."

"Session?" It’s none of Jongdae’s business, but he feels, now, like Joonmyun’s been his friend for so much longer than he has. Joonmyun tucks his hands into his pockets. "You don’t have to answer that, hyung."

"Sehun and I were in the same therapy group."

Jongdae’s head jerks sharply to study Joonmyun’s profile. Krystal and Chanyeol are just ahead of them, and Jongdae turns his head back to Chanyeol’s back, which is safer than Joonmyun’s downturned lips.

"You know, therapy for rich kids who make detrimental choices."

"I can imagine you as that type of kid even less than I can imagine you hating to put your clothes away," says Jongdae, and Joonmyun’s face softens, some. "What, did you wear navy blue ties to black-tie only dinner parties?"

"Sehun and I… have a lot in common. We got closer because we could relate. He’s the little brother I never had."

"Like my Jongin?"

"Exactly," Joonmyun says.

"Did you advise the rainbow kitten on his hair choices?" Jongdae teases, still trying to ease Joonmyun out of his funk.

"No," Joonmyun says, and there’s the smile Jongdae lo- likes.

Chanyeol brays loudly in front of them, and all of Jongdae’s progress is lost as Joonmyun’s face closes off again, inscrutable in the way only years of practice can bring.

"So the flower?"

"It’s a game," Joonmyun says. "I played earlier, and I won, so I kept the petal to remind myself."

"A game?" Jongdae doesn’t understand. "A game was worth my voice?"

"Not the game," Joonmyun responds. His hands straighten his hair, fingers combing through the locks in front of his ears in a nervous habit Jongdae hasn’t seen since high school. Joonmyun used to do it before choir performances, right after he’d given them all a pep talk. "It’s not that simple."

"So what was that petal, to you? What made it so special?" Jongdae reaches out for Joonmyun’s hand. Joonmyun dodges.

"Does it really matter?" It does. Jongdae doesn’t know why, but it does.

"What did you give him in exchange for my voice?" More insistent than he should be, but curiosity killed the cat.

Joonmyun breathes out heavily. "Hope," he says, and it’s so bleak. He doesn’t sound like the same man that had lectured only a few hours ago on the importance of looking at the whole world with wonder.

"You gave that up? For me?"

"That’s what friends are for, right?" Joonmyun is so far away now Jongdae feels like maybe he’d never been close at all.

Jongdae feels like his heart is sort of breaking.

"Hey," Chanyeol says, "you don’t think Kris is at the castle, do you?"

"No idea," says Jongdae. "But Baekhyun is."

"Good," Chanyeol replies, grabbing for Krystal’s hand. Unlike Joonmyun, she doesn’t shy away.

Jongdae wonders if he’ll ever have that. Probably not. "You’re… happy about that?"

"Baekhyun always gets the girls," Chanyeol whines. "But I’ve got the best one."

Krystal is inexplicably charmed, and Jongdae looks over at Joonmyun again. He’s watching them sadly. Maybe Joonmyun had carried a torch for Krystal, after all.

"It’s funny," Joonmyun says, as the Castle of Oz comes into view, looming in front of them with the promise of safety and maybe an end to this whole adventure. "It feels like those keys are still hanging around my neck."

⚘⚘⚘

 

"This is not how the ending is supposed to go." Yixing looks distraught as Lu Han rubs his lower back in slow circles. "Why is the Summer Princess marrying the Winter Prince?"

It’s sunrise, and Jongdae is so tired he can feel it in his bones.

"It’s actually pretty romantic," Kyungsoo says dryly. "If you like things like that."

"How could anything involving Chanyeol be romantic?" Baekhyun asks, blowing a raspberry at him. "What does she see in him? Have you seen her shoulders? What does she even see in him?"

"Don’t be jealous," Jongdae says. "You’ll get her next time." Baekhyun huffs and spins his magic, cotton candy appearing in front of him. He bites into it sulkily.

"Just think," Kris pats him on the shoulder, his armor gleaming in the oncoming sun, "Chanyeol only gets one girl for the rest of his life. How many will you get, Baekhyun?"

"Thousands," Baekhyun says solemnly, and Kyungsoo shakes his head with subtle judgment tinged with a hint of fondness.

"I just don’t understand," Yixing says. "It was the perfect quest, and at the end, there’s the happily ever after." He looks over at Joonmyun, who is sitting by himself at the edge of the courtyard, looking every inch a prince even in his wrinkled untucked shirt and dirt-smudged boat shoes.

"Life doesn’t always go how you planned it to," Jongdae says. Joonmyun, sensing their gaze on him, stands up and walks toward them, his translucent lavender wings glittering as he moves.

Jongdae feels like a bottle of carbonated soda that’s been shaken up and left unopened, all the bubbles inside him pressing at the plastic container walls. He’d thought maybe getting to know Joonmyun would make this whole friendship thing easier, but every new thing he’s learned has only made him fall more in love, because Joonmyun’s heart is even more wonderful than Jongdae had thought it was when he was fifteen and star-stuck.

Jongdae steps forward to meet him halfway.

"Went through all that trouble to save a princess that didn’t want to be saved," says Joonmyun, after a few moments of awkward silence. "If this were a video game, I would totally demand a refund."

"She just wasn’t the girl for you," says Jongdae. Joonmyun looks at Jongdae, evenly, a question lurking in the downward tilt of his lips. Then it’s gone, as though it were nothing.

"Guess she wasn’t," he says, eventually, and Jongdae knows this is all some elaborate fantasy, some time out from life that may or may not have happened thanks to the Magic Tree, but he wishes that his dreams didn’t have a way slipping through his fingers even when he’s living his own fairy tale. "I’m glad you got your voice back."

"Would you have missed me teasing you, hyung?"

"More than you know," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae does not want to meet his eyes.

"Do you think we’re stuck here?"

"Maybe we should…" Joonmyun blinks, and tiny bits of sunlight get caught in his wings, casting a kaleidoscope of color across the grass. "Go to the Magic Tree?"

"Do you think it would…"

"Well," says Joonmyun, "it got us here, didn’t it?"

⚘⚘⚘

 

They sneak away from the castle as dawn becomes full-blown morning.

The sky opens up and pours on them as punishment, and Jongdae tries to summon the energy to be upset but he’s exhausted and Joonmyun looks like a drowned pet bunny, so there’s no reason for Jongdae to get mad.

"This world really thinks of everything to throw at us." The rain has washed the visible unhappiness from Joonmyun’s face, and when the rain stops, it doesn’t come back.

The Magic Tree is still so big and sprawling. You can see the magic in it, in the daytime, and the water from the heavy rain clings to the leaves and adds a completely different sort of magic.

"Doing the show will be nothing after the real thing, huh?" Joonmyun is still sopping wet and laughing. He ducks into the tree, and Jongdae follows. Shoulder to shoulder like this, Jongdae remembers his last wish inside the Magic Tree.

"Yeah," Jongdae says. He slides his hands along the inside of the tree, marveling at the feeling of real bark and the songs of not-recorded birds humming as he breathes in the magic. "Nothing at all. Guerilla rehearsal, after all." He slides his hands up, until they can grasp onto a knob of wood that has been smoothed down by the rub of many hands before his.

I wish I could go home, he thinks. I wish I could go home and hide behind my finals and my rent and that stupid audition and everything else.

This time, he recognizes the warm buzz of magic. 

"Jongdae, there’s something I’ve been meaning to say."

"What is it, hyung?"

He never hears the answer, because the world is spinning all over again.

⚘⚘⚘

 

He wakes up for work in the morning feeling bleary-eyed. His stomach is painfully empty and his muscles hurt and his head hurts, too. "What—"

His alarm is going off loudly, blaring like a siren through the apartment, and he slaps his hand against his bedside dresser until he finds the off button.

He’s in his own bed. His sheets are the soft, fuzzy ones Zitao had given him for his birthday last year, and he’s wearing just his underwear, and everything is normal.

Everything is normal. Everything was always normal, Kim Jongdae. Your imagination just ran away from you and you chased it like an idiot.

"I feel like death," he moans to himself, staring up at his ceiling. "Or like I’ve run a marathon." His ceiling is not interesting, but it would take too much energy to move. "That was some dream."

Jongdae is never going to drink Kris’s coffee before bed again. Dreaming of magical kingdoms and bizarre adventures… Dreaming about Joonmyun… Jongdae has always had some wild dreams but none more wild than this.

It had felt so real. Jongdae had been lost with Joonmyun, and he had learned so much about him—

Only he hadn’t. Jongdae doesn’t even know where he gets this stuff. Of course he didn’t sprout a pair of wings and go gallivanting around a magical faerie kingdom, no matter how real it felt.

He sits up slowly, and his abs protest. His thighs ache, too. He sighs, rolling out of bed and grabbing a change of underwear and heading to the shower.

He winces when he looks at himself in the mirror, as he’s waiting for the water to heat up enough to get under it. Unshaven face, dark circles under his eyes, and a long, jagged cut on his shoulder…

Jongdae frowns, bringing his fingers up to probe at the cut. He remembers, clearly, getting the cut in his dream, but he has no idea where he would have gotten it in real life. "Ahh, Jongdae, you probably were so tired last night you rammed yourself into the dresser or something." It seems reasonable enough.

The hot water eases some of the pain in his body, and by the time he’s gotten dressed and walks out into the kitchen, Jongin is awake and cooking.

"I’m making omelets," Jongin says.

"Is that French cuisine?" asks Jongdae. His throat is raw, and the words come out roughly. He fumbles about in his pocket until he finds a lozenge, and immediately pops it into his mouth.

"The French don’t eat breakfast," Jongin replies, and Jongdae laughs at him and shakes his head. "By the way, I waited up for you last night, but you never came home? When did you get in?"

"What are you talking about?" Jongdae asks. "I came home and you were passed out on the floor with the ring we got yesterday."

"No, hyung, that was Saturday morning. Today is Sunday."

"Wait, what?" Jongdae scratches at his chin. "How can it be Sunday? What did I do on Saturday?"

"That’s what I’m asking you, hyung! Where were you last night? I thought you’d be home kind of early since you seemed so worried about your final."

Jongdae shivers. "Today can’t be Sunday, Jongin. It has to be Saturday."

"It isn’t, hyung." Jongin flips the omelet in the pan, and then starts fidgeting, like he either has ants in his pants or wants to talk about something important. "I think you’re working too hard."

"What?"

"If you’re so tired you’re skipping days in your head, you’re working too hard."

"I’m not missing days," Jongdae snaps. "The days are just… not… lining up correctly."

"And there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about, hyung." Jongin’s eyes are glued to the omelet like it’s the most interesting omelet that ever existed. Jongdae’s stomach agrees, but Jongdae’s brain knows that just means Jongin is too anxious to look him in the eyes. "Something I found this morning."

Jongdae’s gut twists and constricts. Not the rent, He thinks. Please tell me he has not found out about the rising rent. His hands grip at the table, and Jongin nods at the counter on the far side.

With dread, Jongdae rises from the seat he’d taken immediately upon walking into the kitchen to walk around Jongin. There, on the table, is that damn flier for Kyungsoo’s damn audition. "Didn’t I put this in the trash?"

"I accidentally threw away a recipe I needed." Jongin turns the eye of the stove down to low and sprinkles cheese on top of the omelet. "So I picked it out of the trash—"

"I hope you washed your hands like, five hundred times, Jongin."

"I did, I did," says Jongin. "But what’s important here is that there was an audition notice! For a musical! In the trash!" He slides the omelet out onto a plate. It’s massive, like Jongin used an entire carton of eggs to make it. He probably did, knowing him.

"I’m busy that day, if you don’t remember." Jongdae grabs two spoons from the drawer, and then picks up the omelet, leaving the crumpled up, unfolded paper airplane of a flier on the counter. Jongin follows him. "Something about a nephew…"

"I’ve been thinking," Jongin says, "that maybe you could go to the audition and meet me at the reception—"

"I’m not going to the audition," says Jongdae. Video cameras and inappropriate hands and not good enough. "It’s nothing to worry about."

"You should go," Jongin says. "You should do it." He sighs, and his hair is uncombed and a floppy mess on top of his head. Jongdae would fix it, but Jongin is still standing up and his muscles hurt too much to reach up for it. "I see you, when you talk about accounting, Jongdae-hyung, and I just think…"

"Don’t be melodramatic," Jongdae says. "I get enough of that from Baekhyun at work. Your nephew’s dol is more than enough for that day—"

"I can handle some of it by myself," Jongin says. "I know that I sometimes ask a lot of you, but I’m not helpless." Jongdae knows that. He does. It’s just that he wants… Jongin sighs again, more heavily, then seems to screw up his courage. "It’s okay to be afraid."

"What are you talking about?"

"It’s okay to be afraid," repeats Jongin. "About the audition. I know you’ve had…" He drops into his chair, the chair legs scraping loudly on the tile in the crushing silence. "Bad experiences," he settles on, and Jongdae angrily stabs at the omelet with a spoon. The rice spewing out is reflective, he thinks, of his desire to lock himself in the bathroom and throw up instead of having this conversation.

"Jongin, I don’t want to…"

"But my thing? With my nephew? I don’t want you to use it, use me, as an excuse not to take this opportunity."

Jongdae has a sudden flash of Jongin, with his golden wings, looking up at him from in front of a pen full of lion cubs, and telling him the exact same thing. And it’s creepy how real that still seems, in Jongdae’s head.

"Don’t you think it’s silly?" he asks. "For me to still be trying out for this stuff?"

"You’re twenty-two, hyung." Jongin takes a huge bite of omelet, chews it briefly, and swallows it mostly whole. "I think it’s silly not to."

Jongdae’s lost his appetite. "I’m going to be late for work," he says, dropping his spoon on the table and standing up. "I’ll see you tonight, Jongin."

"Okay," Jongin says. "See if anyone knows why you sleepwalked home sometime after two AM last night."

There’s something so off about this, and Jongdae supposes Jongin’s trying to play a practical joke on him or something. "It’s Saturday, Jongin."

"No, hyung," Jongin insists, as Jongdae snags his backpack by the door, "it isn’t."

⚘⚘⚘

 

The bus drops him off. He pulls out his key ring and unlocks the gate, letting himself in to the pretty empty park. He glances down at his watch. He expects it to be stopped, for some reason, but it’s running, and it’s six-thirty already, which explains why the cheerful music is already playing, resonating through the park as Jongdae walks toward the Castle of Oz.

There’s no high grass, and no wondrous blooming flowers. There are no faeries looking down on him from high towers and there is nothing at all magical about the air when he breathes in.

It’s just an amusement park, and Jongdae is running late.

Kris’s office door is open. Baekhyun is already inside, sitting on Kris’s desk as Kris struggles in vain to ignore him. Baekhyun, naturally, is already happily shoving wefts of cotton candy into his mouth.

"Morning," Baekhyun says. "You’re here awfully late."

"I’m still on time," defends Jongdae. "I missed the bus I usually take because I was talking with Jongin. I had to catch the next one."

"Must be tired after the shows from yesterday," Kris says, looking up from his paperwork. "You and Joonmyun were so enthusiastic."

"Yesterday?" Jongdae has this weird feeling. "What are you talking about?"

"I have to admit," says Baekhyun, "I sort of thought Joonmyun was so nervous he was going to pass out before we got to the first song."

The universe, Jongdae decides, is playing a practical joke on him.

"I hear you and Joonmyun went out for drinks last night," says Chanyeol from behind Jongdae. He’s in hugging distance, so Jongdae, with the reflexes and skills of a ninja, dodges Chanyeol’s hug, as usual, and turns around just in time to watch Chanyeol’s arms close around empty air. "Just the two of you~"

"I don’t… remember that," Jongdae says, and Kris arches an eyebrow as both Baekhyun and Chanyeol start to laugh.

"No wonder you’re late today," Baekhyun laughs. "Did you drink hangover soup, lightweight?"

"I know the ‘one beer wonder’ did not just call me a lightweight," Jongdae says to Chanyeol, pretending Baekhyun isn’t in the room, as he usually does. Teasing him helps Jongdae calm the rising panic in stomach that he’s missed an entire day of his life and he might never get it back. "I must be imagining things again."

"Have some coffee," Kris offers, and both Chanyeol and Jongdae snort in unison.

"No thanks, leader," Chanyeol says. "I value my internal organs and have no desire to liquefy them with your unique approach to poison."

"I had some yesterday," adds Jongdae. "I think it causes blackouts and hallucinations."

"It’s not that bad," Kris says, signing his paperwork with a larger signature, hand wobbling in embarrassment, and Baekhyun grimaces dramatically as Kris’s pen digs into his butt cheek. Stubbornly, though, he wiggles until Kris realizes it and pulls himself in, conceding the desk to Baekhyun’s ass and morosely studying the papers under it.

"It really is," Jongdae says, and then he pushes a hand through his hair. "I’d better change into costume."

"Don’t look so glum," says Baekhyun. "It’s Sunday after all."

"Of course it is," agrees Jongdae. They must be playing a practical joke on him, he decides. But that’s okay, because he’s mixed up enough about his dream that the confusion about what day it is seems pretty low on the list.

When he reaches the locker room door, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a blooming flower climbing the wall of the Castle of Oz. For a moment his heart stops, and he remembers Joonmyun, face alit in wonder, leaning close enough to the flowers to feel them bloom against his cheeks. But when he turns, the flowers against the wall are all plastic, and the ominous funhouse castle doesn’t seem as beautiful as Jongdae’s memory wants it to be.

⚘⚘⚘

 

Kyungsoo is in the locker room, his wings already protruding from his back and his make-up heavy on his lids. He’s got his notebook open and he’s scribbling something down.

"I’ve always wondered what you’re writing in there," Jongdae says, and Kyungsoo closes the notebook, tucking it into his locker and looking up calmly at Jongdae.

"Well, you can keep wondering," Kyungsoo says. "Did you think about the audition?"

"I did," Jongdae says. "How could I not, when you’re leaving fliers in my locker?"

"It was a friendly reminder," is Kyungsoo’s bland reply. "I know how avoidant you can be."

Jongdae pulls his shirt over his head and shoves it into the bottom of his locker. Then he pulls out the sheer blouse that goes under his vest and puts it on.

"I don’t think I can," he says. "You don’t understand…" He isn’t supposed to understand. Jongdae keeps that memory under lock and key.

In his dream, though, he’d told Joonmyun, and Joonmyun had looked at him and told him—Jongdae’s jeans are replaced with sky blue tights, and his sneakers with leather shoes.

"I don’t," Kyungsoo says. "You’ve got an amazing voice, Kim Jongdae. And I can tell you want to use it. When you sing, it’s like…" He smiles. "It’s like me. It’s like you love singing the same way I do."

"I do love singing." Jongdae buttons his vest, one ornate silver button at a time. "I don’t know what I would do without singing." A white mist. A trade.

Jongdae’s dream last night had felt so fucking real.

"Then audition," Kyungsoo says. "Before it’s too late somewhere other than in your mind."

Kyungsoo closes his locker, fully dressed, and starts to leave the locker room.

"Hey, Kyungsoo," Jongdae asks. "What day is it?"

"It’s Sunday, of course," Kyungsoo says. "We only do shows two days a week, and yesterday was the first day. So naturally, today is Sunday."

"Thanks," Jongdae whispers, and Kyungsoo walks out the door, and in his wake, Joonmyun walks in.

"Good morning," he says, and Jongdae licks his lips as Joonmyun opens his locker, Joonmyun’s cologne wafting into his nose.

"Morning, hy—" He catches himself, and Joonmyun’s eyes widen. "Seonbae."

"I prefer hyung," says Joonmyun. "If that’s all right with you, Jongdae." And how does it sound exactly the same in real life to hear Joonmyun say his name like this, all soft and familiar?

"Yeah," Jongdae says. "I can… That’s fine. With me." He swallows. His throat, it turns out, is more swollen than raw, and swallowing makes him wince.

"Are you all right?" Joonmyun asks. "Does something hurt?" He raises a hand to Jongdae’s shoulder, and now, instead of thinking about high school, with kind Joonmyun running a hand up Jongdae’s shin to check for injuries, he thinks of Joonmyun in his dream, smiling up at him with worry crinkling at the corner of his eyes and standing close enough that Jongdae can drown himself in the scent of his hair.

"I’m fine," Jongdae says. "My throat is sore." He resists the temptation to rest his hand on top of Joonmyun’s and keep it there. "Must have been some set of shows yesterday, huh?"

"Must have been," Joonmyun says faintly, and his brow has creased adorably. He seems to be looking for words, but his hesitation is distracting, his small pink mouth pressed into a thin line and his jaw tensing and releasing. Jongdae wants to cup the back of his neck.

"Woah, am I interrupting something?" 

Joonmyun’s hand immediately drops, and they spring apart. Jongdae feels that utterly delightful burn of embarrassment at being caught looking at Joonmyun like that. At least it’s Lu Han and not Baekhyun who’s seen it, but it’s a small consolation.

"No," Joonmyun says. "Jongdae said his throat hurt, so I was just making sure he was all right for the show today."

Lu Han is looking back and forth between the two of them with vague amusement. "Okay. Sure." He shrugs. "But yo, Jongdae," he says, one hand sneaking into his pants, presumably to adjust himself, "I hear you think it’s Saturday."

"Shut up and go buy a jock strap," Jongdae says, and he reaches into his locker to pull on his jacket, ignoring how heavy Joonmyun’s eyes feel on him.

It’s really heavy though, and Jongdae wonders if the weight is comparable to the keys Joonmyun wore, in his imaginary magical Laciun.

⚘⚘⚘

 

The sun is hot, hot, hot. Jongdae is going to die in his velvet jacket. The first show is over now, and they still have two hours until the second, so he wanders around the park, smiling at children and blowing bubbles and trying not to think about Joonmyun or missing days. Tonight, when he gets home, he’ll probably freak out, but he can put it aside for long enough to get through the day.

Baekhyun accompanies him for a while, complaining about the heat and his girlfriend and Chanyeol, and Jongdae lets Baekhyun’s voice drown out all of his uncomfortable thoughts.

When Baekhyun leaves him alone, though, the thoughts start eating at him, chewing on him like big hungry lions, and Jongdae has no idea how to make it stop.

He comes across a group of teenagers in front of the Magic Tree, two girls and three boys, and they’re bickering.

"Obviously it’s not real magic," one girl says, hands on her hips as she leans forward. "It’s just something for the little kids to get excited about."

"Of course it’s real magic," Jongdae finds himself saying. The teenagers turn to look at him, the one girl still wearing her best unimpressed face. "You go inside the tree and make a wish."

"That’s so childish," one of the boys says, and Jongdae grins, his heart beating loud in his chest.

"It’s not childish," he says, thinking about the Joonmyun in his dream, who stood up to his old co-workers to obtain the third key, "to allow yourself to look around and see possibility instead of inevitability."

The teens gape at him, before the other girl blushes. "I kind of want to do it," she says. "Just in case it does work, you know?"

"All right, says another of the boys. "I’ll wish with you."

And Jongdae smirks triumphantly at the first, skeptical girl, blowing bubbles in her general direction as he scopes out more toddlers to entertain. His heart is still pounding. At some memory that isn’t even real, he scolds himself, and his shoulder pulls strangely beneath his jacket as he lowers his arm with the empty bubble wand.

He’s surprised, when he turns around, to see Joonmyun watching him, his lips slightly parted in surprise. "Hyung?"

"I was just walking by and I…" Joonmyun straightens his cravat, "heard you talking to those teenagers. I couldn’t help but overhear you."

"I was only messing with them," Jongdae says. "They’re too young to be cynical like me."

"You’re too young to be cynical like you," says Joonmyun. He’s smiling again, the corners of his lips lifting into a grin that looks more genuine than not, even under all the make-up. "You didn’t sound all that cynical just now, though."

Jongdae studies the pavement of Main Street, and wishes it were a softer, dustier road. "Someone I really admire told me once to look for the hope in things," says Jongdae quietly, and Joonmyun laughs.

"Whoever they are," he says, just as quiet, "I agree with them."

That night, as they leave the park, lockers stuffed full and hats shoved down on wig-matted hair, Jongdae is still avoiding Joonmyun’s eyes. "Night, hyung," Jongdae says.

"Night, Jongdae," he replies, and Jongdae, sneaking a quick glance at him, can imagine, somehow, the flicker of wings behind him.

⚘⚘⚘

 

"How did it go?" Zitao asks as they exit the classroom, and Jongdae rubs at his eyes.

"I have no idea." He scratches at his face, and comes away with a fleck of face paint under his nails. "Gross."

"I either did extremely well or extremely horribly," says Zitao. "I answered all of the questions but…"

Jongdae hadn’t, and he’s fairly certain he’d left a spot of drool on the second sheet of the exam where he’d taken a satisfying albeit brief nap on it. "Well, that sounds encouraging," he says, and Zitao grins. "Now you just have to ask out your rainbow kitten."

"Shhh, shhh," Zitao says, looking around frantically to see if anyone might have heard. "Don’t rush me, I’m still trying to find out more about him."

Sehun chooses that moment to walk out of the classroom as well. He spots Zitao and Jongdae, and his cheeks go pink before he straightens his face into a show of nonchalance as Zitao looks over and spots him.

Jongdae rolls his eyes. "Hey, Oh Sehun," he calls out, and Sehun’s eyes widen. "Could you come here for a sec?"

"Sure," Sehun replies. His voice is a bit breathy for Jongdae’s tastes, but Zitao seems as enamored as usual. "What’s up?"

Remembering his dream, Jongdae takes a gamble. "Do you know Kim Joonmyun?"

Sehun’s face lights up. "I do!"

"I work with him at Everland," Jongdae says. "I thought I’d heard him say he knew you…" that must have been it. Maybe Joonmyun had talked to someone else about it and Jongdae hadn’t even realized he was listening. That’s why his brain had had that information for him, in his dream. How he’d been able…

"I do," Sehun says. "We’ve known each other for a while. We met at…" He stops, hesitating, and then his gaze darts at Zitao.

"Ah, well, this is one of my best friends, Zitao," Jongdae says. "And I have to go get lunch and run to my next class, so you should get coffee with him, seeing as he’s done for the day."

"Hyung," Zitao says, but Sehun beams, his whole face lighting up, and he’s so soft and fluffy and perfect for Zitao, who looks like a big dragon that wants to curl up around him. Jongdae’s imagination really did a bang up job.

"That sounds wonderful," Sehun says, and Jongdae pats himself on the back.

Does the magic world mirror the real world?

Jongdae tries not to think about it, thankful he isn’t going into work today.

⚘⚘⚘

 

It takes a week for him to stop constantly thinking about the magic. He keeps seeing flowers bloom out of the corner of his eye, and when he puts his keys into the gate to let himself in every day, he always hesitates with the third one, for some reason fearing the Winter magic is going to come out and steal his voice.

"You’ve lost it, Jongdae," he mutters to himself.

"Like you ever had it," Baekhyun replies, scaring Jongdae as he steals one of Kris’s plush toys and carries it off to the locker room, probably only to see how long it takes before Kris notices.

"One day, Baekhyun, one day," he shakes his fist, and Baekhyun laughs mockingly as he sails over to his locker, Jongdae close behind.

Joonmyun is…

Joonmyun is different. Jongdae doesn’t know why, but he seems quieter than he had in the week preceding Jongdae’s extreme hallucination. His gaze, when he looks at Jongdae sometimes, is shuttered, and Jongdae wants to reach out and pull him into a hug, one arm around Joonmyun’s shoulders and Joonmyun’s head tucked under Jongdae’s.

And it’s strange, because sometimes Joonmyun looks at Jongdae like he wants him to do that, too, but the whole idea of it is preposterous and silly and Jongdae needs to stop putting all these thoughts in his own head.

It’s two weeks before anyone says anything.

"I hate to ask this," Lu Han says, with the tone of someone who really doesn’t sound like they mind asking at all, "but did something happen between you two?"

"What?" Jongdae licks at his cone of frozen yogurt, chocolate and vanilla mixing in his mouth, and purposely feigns ignorance.

"You and Joonmyun," Lu Han clarifies. "Because ever since you guys went out for drinks that Saturday a few weeks ago, you’ve been tiptoeing around each other pretty oddly."

"What’s odd is you thinking you’re observant," Jongdae says, and Lu Han smiles cheekily.

"Actually," Lu Han says, "it was Chanyeol that noticed, but I don’t think he actually cares about anything beyond his teeth and whatever girl he’s into right now that he keeps texting."

"And you care?" Jongdae keeps it light. Noncommittal.

"Minseok cares," Lu Han says. His wings shimmer, and Jongdae, for a moment, recalls Lu Han using them to actually fly. "I don’t want him to worry."

Lu Han is always Lu Han. "Nothing happened."

"It’s like you guys had a one night stand and both of you don’t want to admit it means something more," says Lu Han, and Jongdae almost chokes on his yogurt.

"It’s nothing like that," Jongdae says. "And don’t even mention something like that around Joonmyun-hyung."

"Well, you certainly pine after him enough for that to be what happened," Lu Han says, frank. "And he gives you those soppy, helpless looks when you’re not watching, so I just assumed—"

Jongdae hadn’t realized that… He’d never really thought it might… He feels himself starting to panic, and takes another bite of yogurt.

"Don’t freak," Lu Han says. "I’m sorry. I thought it was obvious you had a crush on Joonmyun. I didn’t think it was a secret." Lu Han links his arm with Jongdae’s. "Is it a secret? Because if it is, the longing looks are not helping to keep that cat in the bag."

"You don’t… mind?" Jongdae has seen Lu Han naked. Jongdae isn’t interested in Lu Han like that, but Jongdae doesn’t want him to suddenly be uncomfortable, just because Jongdae is…

"Joonmyun is so cute," Lu Han says. "Too cute for you, Jongdae." He pats Jongdae’s butt. "Not my type, what with the penis and all, but definitely cute."

Jongdae throws the rest of his yogurt in the trash, frowning down at his shoes. Shoelace conversations, he supposes. His stomach hurts again. "Lu Han-hyung, I’ve never actually…" Jongdae thinks about pressing shoulder to shoulder with Joonmyun, inside the Magic Tree. And of wings. "Told anyone, you know, that I’m…"

"Ah," Lu Han says. "Don’t sweat it, kid." He pats Jongdae’s butt again. "If Minseok were here, he’d say something along the lines of ‘you’re still you, and I like you for who you are’."

"If Minseok were here," Jongdae replies, feeling like he desperately wants to lock himself away inside his own locker until he suffocates and dies in there, "I’d tell him ‘thanks’."

Lu Han laughs, and steps away from Jongdae as he sees a gaggle of excited school children. "Maybe you should stop looking at the ground and start looking at Joonmyun," Lu Han says, and Jongdae studies him quizzically. "Just a thought, from me to you~"

Jongdae thinks it’s pretty ridiculous of Lu Han to think that Jongdae doesn’t look at Joonmyun, when he’s sure Joonmyun isn’t looking back. "Okay," he says, and Lu Han winks at him before walking away, leaving Jongdae alone under the boiling late July sun.

 

⚘⚘⚘

 

Things with Joonmyun get better when Jongdae stops letting himself fumble through their interactions like a confused fifteen year old. Joonmyun responds to his overtures easily, letting Jongdae work himself closer and closer into his personal space.

He’s not flirting with you, Jongdae reminds himself every time Joonmyun’s fingertips slide up into the crook of his elbow or Joonmyun asks him, with his sweet voice, if Jongdae would like to eat lunch together.

"I always wanted to ask you to eat lunch with me when we were in high school," Joonmyun says. He’s changed out of his costume, but Jongdae still has his on. "But you were always—"

"Having conversations with my shoelaces," Jongdae completes without thinking, and when he looks up, Joonmyun is studying him searchingly, like he’s looking for answers in Jongdae’s gaze.

"Yes," Joonmyun says, reaching up to fix the collar of his shirt. "Yes, that."

Jongdae sets down his burger and reaches across the table, undoing the top two buttons on Joonmyun’s shirt with fingers that barely shake. "You don’t have anyone to impress," he says. "You don’t have to try so hard."

"It’s habit," Joonmyun replies. "I can’t help myself." He grins. His cheeks are pink, but not as pink as his lips. "Besides, what if I want to impress you?"

"I don’t know if you’ve noticed," Jongdae says, "but I’m already impressed."

Joonmyun looks up at him with bright eyes, but then his hand goes to the pocket of his jeans and his eyes dim again. Jongdae follows the movement with confusion. "You don’t have to pump up my ego."

"Sure I do," Jongdae says. "But don’t tell anyone I’m nice to you, they’ll think I’m playing favorites."

"Are you?" Joonmyun asks, and then he shakes his head with a disarming smile that looks more plastic than the flowers.

"Maybe," Jongdae says, winking at Joonmyun, but he’s at the top of a roller coaster again, staring down at the drop.

Joonmyun rubs again at the pocket of his jeans, and Jongdae wishes that didn’t make him think that…

Jongdae looks up at the Magic Tree sometimes, and wishes it hadn’t all felt so very real.

⚘⚘⚘

 

Jongdae calls his mother the Friday before Jongin’s nephew’s dol.

"Jongdae," she says. "How have you been, sweetie?"

"Good," Jongdae says. "Pretty good. Work is all right. School is all right."

"That’s nice to hear." She clears her throat. "How did you do on your finals, dear?"

"I passed them both," Jongdae says. "Not with flying colors, but not badly, either."

"You should do your best, Jongdae. This is your future we’re talking about."

Jongdae sighs, and Jongin, who is walking in from the living room with an empty box of fried chicken, gives him a curious look. "Mom, it’s like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole."

"You know you’re doing what’s best," she says, and Jongdae doesn’t know that at all.

"How would you feel," Jongdae says, and Jongin opens the refrigerator noisily, making a show of not eavesdropping on Jongdae’s conversation, "if I started doing auditions again?"

"Accountants don’t do auditions," is her response. Jongin has frozen with his head in the refrigerator, and Jongdae is tempted to kick his ass and see if he’s holding his muscles tense enough that he falls in.

"I’m not an accountant yet," Jongdae says, and when Jongin closes the refrigerator door and walks back into the living room after sending Jongdae a silly, pleased little smile, Jongdae stares at the folded, wrinkled up flier that Jongin has unhygienically stuck to the refrigerator door with an Everland magnet. "Not yet."

Possibility instead of inevitability, he thinks.

Jongdae looks up to Joonmyun, even the Joonmyun in his dreams.

"Whatever your mother said," says Jongin, after Jongdae hangs up the phone and pads into the living room, "auditions are a good idea."

"No one cares what you think," Jongdae says, shoving Jongin over until there’s enough space for him on the couch. "Especially not me."

"Having something you want is a good idea," Jongin says, more quietly, and Jongdae purses his mouth.

"I know," he says, and he thinks of Joonmyun, on that pier, talking about wanting more than to just settle. He thinks about Joonmyun, dressed in a silly costume, smiling at him and asking, under the glowing Magic Tree lights, how to make a wish.

⚘⚘⚘

 

"Jongdae," says Yixing, as Jongdae walks past Kris’s office. "Come."

"Why?" Jongdae asks suspiciously, even as he walks over. Yixing has his guitar in his lap, and sheet music in front of him.

"Look at this part I’ve written for you in the fall show," Yixing says. "Can you sing it for me?"

Jongdae looks down at the paper. The lyrics are so cheesy.

"Joonmyun-hyung will love these lyrics," Jongdae says, and Yixing tilts his head in confusion.

"But Joonmyun-hyung isn’t staying with us for the fall," Yixing says. "Didn’t you know?"

"No," Jongdae says faintly. "I didn’t."

⚘⚘⚘

 

"I hear you aren’t coming back," Jongdae says, and Joonmyun smiles up at him, all crinkling eyes and uneven teeth. He’s so beautiful, still, even with his sunburned neck and his grown-out red hair. "For the fall show, I mean."

"I’ve been meaning to tell you," Joonmyun says. "I just kept putting it off."

"I do that sometimes," says Jongdae. "I get it."

He does. The audition weighs on him, even among all the other things he’s trying to juggle.

"I’m going next week," Joonmyun says. "I gathered up all my savings and I’m headed south."

"South?"

"I’ve always wanted to go out and see more of the world." Joonmyun shrugs. "I figure this is my last chance."

"Too many possibilities out there to stay trapped in here, huh?" Jongdae smiles. "I get that, too."

"You get a lot, don’t you?" Joonmyun’s mouth curves down. "I don’t feel trapped here, Jongdae." He nudges him with his elbow. "It’s just that when I know I can’t have something I want, I always have to… look for new possibilities."

"I admire you so much," Jongdae says. "I always have."

"You should admire someone worthy of that admiration."

"You are," Jongdae says. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"Have you told me before?" Joonmyun asks, and Jongdae chokes on the words of course I have because in this world, in this real world where Joonmyun isn’t a prince and Jongdae isn’t his best friend, he really hasn’t.

"What if I e-mail you pictures of kids making wishes at the Tree?" Jongdae says. "What if I spam you every day?"

"I’d like that," Joonmyun says. "But I won’t have that much internet."

"You won’t have internet?"

"Not on a regular basis," Joonmyun says. Then he laughs. "I didn’t want constant e-mails from my parents, telling me… all kinds of things."

"How am I supposed to keep you updated on Zitao and Sehun, then?" he says. I’ve just gotten close enough to talk to you is what he thinks. And now you’re going away.

"You can write me letters. About anything, Jongdae, not just that." He smiles and waves his hands in disclaimer. "Not that you have to, I wasn’t implying that—"

"I don’t have a lot of practice writing letters," Jongdae says. "I think, in my whole life, I’ve only written one." He remembers holding it in his clenched fist and being too afraid to offer it up.

"Was it a love letter?" Joonmyun asks, and Jongdae wonders if someone can still be a cold-hearted city boy with an indisguisable flush.

"It was," Jongdae admits. "A confession letter." Jongdae had been fifteen, and it had been the night before the third year graduation ceremony. He’d written it out in his most careful penmanship, and folded it neatly, sticking it in an unaddressed envelope.

He’d seen Joonmyun, the next day, wearing his high school blazer for the last time, and his courage had fled. What would he want with you? Jongdae had thought, and thrown it into the bottom of his bag. He still has it tucked away in the back of his sock drawer.

"For the prettiest girl in school?" Joonmyun teases, eyes on the carousel as the unicorns and dragons go up and down, circling under the canopy.

"For my third year crush," Jongdae corrects. "Far too mature and perfect for me." He laughs. "Third years don’t notice first years anyway."

"I don’t know about that," Joonmyun says. "I always noticed your smile."

He’s not flirting with you, Jongdae. He’s not. So stop getting your hopes up.

Still, it feels like Jongdae’s pulse won’t stop racing, and he wants to be closer to Joonmyun. He moves closer, until he can smell that fruity cologne.

He recalls, as though it were real, the way it had felt to have Joonmyun’s wings press into his chest, and the way the skin of Joonmyun’s face had felt in his palms. For Jongdae, it was maybe always real, even if common sense is telling him it’s impossible for it to have ever happened.

"I promise to write you letters," Jongdae says, and Joonmyun, after a moment’s hesitation, reaches out and grabs his hand. "If you send me an address to send them to."

"Do you keep your promises, Kim Jongdae?"

"Always," Jongdae replies, and Joonmyun’s hand reaches for a pocket, but there’s none to be found on his costume at all.

"That’s good," Joonmyun says. "I’m counting on you for those updates." His smile is hollow, and Jongdae wishes he could make it real.

Jongdae isn’t sure, though, if wishes really do come true.

⚘⚘⚘

 

Jongdae laughs as Baekhyun picks up Ace and Alexander immediately after entering Kris’s office, tossing his cotton candy, only half-finished, into the trash.

"Guess what I just found out?"

"Do I have to?" Kyungsoo asks, scribbling in his notebook.

"I’m sure he’ll tell us anyway," Jongdae says. He feels wrung out from his conversation with Joonmyun, and sad, and he’s almost considering the coffee over on the end counter to try and relieve the lethargy. He could use a weird dream or two. "Don’t waste your energy, Kyungsoo."

"Chanyeol’s dating Krystal," Baekhyun says. "I can’t believe this. I won’t."

It’s just like Jongdae’s dream. It’s more distant in his mind, now, but the facts still stick. Most of them, he realizes, have proven true as he gets to know Joonmyun all over again.

Joonmyun who shoves his expensive shirts into his locker without folding them but tucks them in meticulously once he puts them on. Joonmyun who smiles so softly and carefully whether he’s happy or sad. Joonmyun, who still has the balloon that is Jongdae’s heart on a string like the kids that wander the amusement park in the early afternoon. (Jongdae isn’t sure whether he wants Joonmyun to let go of him or not, because floating away is as scary as staying tethered.)

"Still bitter that she turned you down last year?" Jongdae asks. "I’m sorry, Baekhyun. That’s gotta sting."

"She’s way too good for him," Baekhyun says, stomping around the office. "Chanyeol’s just a big dork with big ears and a big vapid smile!"

"I guess that’s Krystal’s ideal man," Kyungsoo says dryly. "He’s also tall and he has that voice…"

"I refuse to acknowledge any positive qualities attributed to Park Chanyeol," replies Baekhyun. "Any. At all."

"I hear Krystal has an older sister," Kris says. "Single. Even prettier. Same legs."

Baekhyun pauses mid-stomp, Alexander in a chokehold. "Oh really," he purrs, and his face clears. "Stupid Park Chanyeol, thinking he can beat me."

"Go get him, lion cub," Jongdae says, and he thinks, as Baekhyun happily skips out of the room after giving Jongdae the finger, leaving Kris to stare dejectedly after him as he picks up Ace and Alexander, that everyone is getting their happy ending except for him.

⚘⚘⚘

 

At the end of the day, he finds Joonmyun in the locker room, changing out of his costume. "Hey," Jongdae says.

Joonmyun looks back over his shoulder and smiles. "You catching the bus tonight, or taking a taxi?"

"Taxi," says Jongdae. "Have to get home before Jongin has too much fun without me."

"Plans for tonight?" His body is tense, and Jongdae doesn’t get it. It’s like… It’s like when they’d met Jongin in the other world, and Joonmyun had seemed…

Jongdae, please don’t get carried away.

"Cleaning up after my little brother Jongin," Jongdae says offhandedly, and Joonmyun’s shoulders relax. "He has some big proficiency exam coming up, and he’s been practicing every day and leaving dangerous surprises behind all over the kitchen. French cooking is too dangerous for him, especially when he’s nervous." The doljanchi is getting closer and closer, and Jongin’s dread at seeing his parents is like the third resident of their apartment.

"Better French cooking than lion taming," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae drops his vest to the floor.

"What?"

"It’s nothing," Joonmyun says, too quickly, and Jongdae feels something strange bubbling up in him, frothing like the fountains in the Rose Garden. "Really, it’s nothing."

Jongdae should say nothing. He should keep his wild thoughts to himself, but there’s something nagging at him, telling him to speak up, just this once.

After all, Joonmyun, in his dreams, had gotten him back his voice. He might as well use it.

"You’re going to think I’m pulling your leg," Jongdae says, "but I had this dream—" Jongdae shakes himself. "Never mind, it’s too preposterous."

"I had a dream too," Joonmyun says. "A really weird one." He smoothes his shirt down with one hand, the other balancing him against the locker. "I dreamt that I was the prince from our Summer Festival show."

Jongdae’s knees feel weak. "That we went to Laciun?"

"Yes," Joonmyun says. "And that we had to find three keys." He grins. "You had the prettiest blue wings, Jongdae."

"Yours were lavender," Jongdae blurts out, and it’s like the rain, that morning, when they were walking back to the Magic Tree. "And in the night, they glowed."

"Maybe you owe Kris an apology for dissing his coffee," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae unbuttons his blouse to show Joonmyun the faint scar on his shoulder.

Joonmyun slowly lifts his hand, the fingertips coming to rest on the bare skin, and Jongdae doesn’t move. He lets Joonmyun drag his fingers along the slightly raised skin, lingering at the end of it before drawing back up to his collarbone. "Was it real?"

Joonmyun’s face is softer than Jongdae has seen it in so long. "Nothing’s impossible," Joonmyun says, and holds up his other arm, extending it for Jongdae’s examination.

There, in white, shiny skin, are the remains of Joonmyun’s own cut. Both of them marked, and it’s like Jongdae has been dropped into the Amazon Express in February, ice crawling up his spine and breathing a struggle.

"But—" Jongdae releases Joonmyun’s arm to touch his throat, and Joonmyun winces, his own hand leaving Jongdae’s shoulder. Jongdae wants to pull it back, and let Joonmyun’s hand sit there above his heart. "Does that mean I can trust everything I learned about you?"

"I’ve been trusting everything I learned about you," says Joonmyun. He’s staring straight into Jongdae’s eyes, and Jongdae can’t really read him but he sees sadness and happiness and all sorts of things in between.

He has to look away at the intensity of it. He busies himself with changing out of his costume completely, and by the time he’s finished, Joonmyun is finished too.

"Hyung," Jongdae says, eventually, when he’s had time to think and process, "when we were… by the tree, that last time, you said…"

"What?" Joonmyun asks. His shirt is buttoned all the way up, cotton armor to protect him, maybe, although Jongdae doesn’t know from what since it’s Jongdae who’s madly in love with Joonmyun, not the other way around. Maybe he remembers the way Jongdae had been unable to take his eyes off the line of his exposed throat. Maybe he’s figured out that Jongdae is…

"You said you had something to tell me?" Jongdae manages.

More silence. More waiting.

"I can’t, though," Joonmyun says. "I keep trying and it won’t come out." He rubs at the scar on his arm. "Winter magic is certainly effective."

There isn’t enough air in the room. He’s reeling, and everything he’d thought was imagined is suddenly not fabrication at all.

"Why’s it so serious in here?" Baekhyun asks, walking in atthe worst possible moment, because Baekhyun sucks. "It’s so somber, like you guys are planning a funeral."

"We are," Jongdae says. "Yours."

"You wouldn’t get within a meter—" Baekhyun starts, but then Joonmyun snaps up his bag.

"I have to go," he says, and Jongdae wants to chase after him, but he doesn’t know if he can demand answers from someone who doesn’t owe him a damn thing.

⚘⚘⚘

 

The last day of Everland’s Summer Festival comes sooner than Jongdae had ever imagined it could.

Jongdae and Joonmyun don’t talk about it. They don’t talk about anything serious, because Joonmyun deftly changes the subject to something shallow and easy every time Jongdae edges too close, physically or vocally. It makes things between them difficult, and if Joonmyun has to leave, Jongdae doesn’t want it to be like this.

He invites Jongin and Zitao to the last show day, because it’s Joonmyun’s last day, and neither of them have made it out to the amusement park all summer.

"It’s hot as balls," Jongin says, and Zitao smacks his arm because there are kids around. "I mean, it is very hot, Jongdae-hyung." He clears his throat. "How do you survive?"

"Flawless people don’t sweat," Jongdae says, not mentioning that he fixes his make-up six times a day.

"That explains why your forehead basically rains when the temperature gets over eighteen, right?" Baekhyun says, and Jongdae’s inherent physical laziness is the only thing that saves Baekhyun from getting tripped.

Jongdae and Joonmyun sing together, and it’s amazing… It’s always amazing, because Jongdae’s voice is amazing and Joonmyun is a master of harmonies, but it’s also so sad, because it’s the last time they’ll sing together.

"I wish you could send me your voice, in letters," Joonmyun says, and Jongdae gulps down the want and smiles.

"I’ll see what I can do," Jongdae says, "but I’m fresh out of white mist."

"You’d give me your voice?" Joonmyun jokes. "I thought it was your most valuable thing."

"I wouldn’t want you to miss me too much," says Jongdae. "After all, what are friends for?"

Joonmyun disappears after his last scene, and Lu Han pulls Jongdae and his two friends away to get ice cream, as Baekhyun tags along and complains that he’s too tired to start learning another show already.

Another show, without Joonmyun. Jongdae doesn’t feel much like ice cream, but he gets some anyway.

After the last show, the three of them watch the late-night fireworks from the Rose Garden, the floor lights casting a magical glow across the blossoms. It’s not magical enough though, and Jongdae wishes, even though he shouldn’t, that Joonmyun were standing here with them, so Jongdae could hold his hand.

Jongin and Jongdae are still eating their ice cream, but Zitao is restless, still too much energy despite the long day at the park. He bends over and plucks a flower before standing up and holding it in front of his face.

"You’re not supposed to pick the flowers," Jongdae says. "It’s against park rules."

"It’s just one flower," Jongin replies. "Plus, I can’t believe anything has survived this heat. Zitao is putting the poor thing out of its Korean summer misery."

Zitao spins the flower in his fingers, before he carefully whispers something in Chinese under his breath, and pulls a petal off.

Jongdae leans forward immediately, his heart doing weird acrobatic things in his chest.

"What are you doing, Zitao?" He’s holding the flower like Joonmyun had, looking at it with equal concentration.

"He loves me, he loves me not," Zitao says, after a moment to consider the Korean, and Jongin laughs.

"It’s ‘effeuiller la marguerite’," Jongin says. "It’s an old French thing, where you pull the petals of a daisy off one by one to decide if someone loves you."

"It’s silly," Zitao says, "but it’s something I do whenever I really like someone. If the last petal is ‘he loves me’, I have that extra boost of hope, you know?" He laughs. "I’m going to ask Sehun out either way, though."

"Good for you," Jongin says, patting Zitao’s shoulder, but Jongdae is still staring at the flower in Zitao’s hand, his mind going back to that big yellow blossom Joonmyun had held as they walked down Main Street, plucking out the petals one by one just like that.

What did you give him in exchange for my voice?

I gave him my hope.

And Joonmyun can’t say what he wanted to say to Jongdae, and… and…

And Jongdae had never once considered that Joonmyun could ever… would ever… But then he thinks about Joonmyun telling him that his smile is hard to forget, and Jongdae feels like the biggest fool ever.

"Oh," Jongdae says, and then he drops the ice cream cone in his hand and takes off running for the locker room, yelling "excuse me" at every accidental brush against a park guest, and dodging children as he goes.

Today is Joonmyun’s last day. It’s not like Jongdae will never see him again, probably, but what if it is and Jongdae lets him leave without ever getting to tell him…

He’s fifteen all over again with his hand crinkling up a confession letter, and he’s… Joonmyun had given him back his voice, and he should use it for the both of them.

He stops outside the doorway, panting and trying to catch his breath. He hopes he isn’t completely wrong about this. "You can fucking do this, Kim Jongdae," he whispers to himself, and then he pushes open the locker room door.

"Joonmyun-hyung?" There’s no answer. Jongdae’s heart sinks faster than a stone. He’s missed him, and now he’ll never have the chance— He rubs at his face with his hand, smearing his make-up everywhere, but he doesn’t care. He can redo it if he has to. It’s one thing he can redo.

"Jongdae-yah, I’m over here." Jongdae lets his hands fall, and sees Joonmyun looking at him, smiling gently. He’s wearing his regular clothes, his shirt tucked in and his hair still damp with sweat from being under his wig. All the contents of his locker make his bag bulge. "Your make-up’s a mess."

"I don’t care," Jongdae says. "I remembered something that I had to tell you."

"And it was so important you had to run?" Joonmyun laughs at him, and in the ugly lighting of the locker room, Joonmyun is still beautiful. There’s a guarded look in his eyes that Jongdae hates, but the smile pulling at his lips is genuine and lovely and something Jongdae treasures.

"It’s ‘I’m sorry’."

Joonmyun looks confused. "For what, exactly, are you sorry?"

"I didn’t know what it meant," Jongdae says. "So I’m sorry."

"Didn’t know what what meant, Jongdae-yah?" Joonmyun steps closer to him, and Jongdae almost closes his eyes to relish the waft of his fruity cologne. "Aren’t you still on duty?"

"Effeuiller la marguerite." He probably says it wrong, the words cumbersome to a tongue not meant for foreign languages, but Joonmyun’s eyes widen in recognition. "I’d never heard of it before, but just now, Zitao was doing it, and I remembered…" Jongdae swallows. "I remember you doing it."

"Ah, Jongdae…"

"And then you kept the petal," Jongdae continues, and he steps closer to Joonmyun. His wings are heavy, and they don’t feel like a part of him at all, but they still tremble. He’s trembling. How embarrassing. "You kept it until you traded it to the Winter Prince in exchange for my voice."

"I did," Joonmyun says, pushing the words out, and then he laughs. Jongdae thinks he’s fighting against the Winter magic. "Are you uncomfortable? With me feeling... that way about you?"

"It is me, then?" Jongdae asks. "I wasn’t sure, but…"

"It’s you," Joonmyun says, and now that Jongdae has put it out there, it’s like a dam has broken, like the spell has broken, all the words trapped inside Joonmyun pouring out. "It’s you. It’s probably the worst thing, but when I first met you, when you were a first year, I couldn’t stop thinking about you…" He laughs again. "When I saw you, my first day here, I couldn’t believe it. I knew it was you immediately, because I’d seen you at the Buddha’s day thing, and…" Joonmyun’s face looks so sad. "When we wound up on a magical quest together, that flower gave me…" He chokes on whatever he was going to say.

Jongdae takes another step. "Joonmyun-hyung," he says, "the thing I like best about you, even more than your kindness, or your fantastic smile, or the mole on the back of your neck, or the way you think about every word you say before you say it, or…" Jongdae breathes. "Even more than that, I love how you look at the world. I love that you see possibility instead of inevitability. I’m jealous."

"You get your heart broken more by reality living my way," Joonmyun replies. "Maybe I should change."

"No," Jongdae says. "Because living my way… living my way, you don’t even think about the possibility that the person you like might like you back." He reaches up and cups Joonmyun’s face with one hand. "Did you know when I was a first year in high school I wrote you a love letter?"

Joonmyun’s mouth is so pink, and he licks his lips anxiously as Jongdae watches him carefully. "That was for me?"

"I never got up the courage to give it to you," Jongdae says. "Instead I had another conversation with my shoelaces."

"You had a lot of those," says Joonmyun. He laughs, and Jongdae uses the hand on Joonmyun’s cheek to hold up his chin.

"I still have it. You can read it if you want," Jongdae says. "When you get back from wherever you’re going."

"You could tell me what it said." Joonmyun’s smile keeps getting bigger, and his eyes are crinkling up the way Jongdae loves, and maybe it’s all right to breathe now. He’s getting kind of lightheaded.

Jongdae could. But his feelings now are bigger and better than they were when he was a teenager, and he’d rather just kiss him.

So he does. He tilts Joonmyun’s head up just a little more, and cautiously leans in, watching Joonmyun’s eyes slowly close as their noses brush. There is a second, lightning quick, where Jongdae thinks this, right now, is the most surreal moment of his life, magical quest included, but then there’s Joonmyun’s soft pink mouth under his, and Joonmyun’s hands clutching at his ugly velvet vest.

Joonmyun tastes like heat and climbing vines and rushing rivers. He tastes like summer, and this, Jongdae thinks, must be what Summer magic is, burning the Winter out of Jongdae just like Joonmyun’s smile.

Joonmyun bites at Jongdae’s lip, sucking it into his mouth, and curls his tongue in between Jongdae’s teeth to lick at the roof of his mouth.

Jongdae has kissed before, but it has never felt like this. Dropping his hands to Joonmyun’s shoulders, he lets Joonmyun push him back into the lockers and explore every millimeter of his mouth.

Stopping to breathe, Jongdae runs his thumb over the mole on Joonmyun’s neck and says, "You are much more interesting than my shoelaces." Joonmyun laughs, kissing him again, and again.

"Ew, gross, PDA in the locker room!" Baekhyun shrieks, throwing open the door and immediately trying to close it. Joonmyun lets go of Jongdae with a louder laugh than before, and Jongdae grabs his hips to keep him close. "Guys, come on."

"Sorry," Jongdae says, squeezing Joonmyun’s hips. "Oh, wait, no I’m not."

"You’re bad," Joonmyun says. "So bad."

"I’m just happy," Jongdae says. "Not even Baekhyun’s existence can ruin this for me."

"And why are you happy?" Joonmyun teases, and Jongdae can’t help but kiss him one more time.

"I don’t know," Jongdae drawls. "Must be all this possibility."

⚘⚘⚘

 

"There is a dent in my locker," Kyungsoo says, standing next to Jongdae and continuously pulling at his belt like it’s too tight. "A dent. In my locker."

"I said I was sorry," Jongdae replies, whispering. Another auditioner looks over at them both sharply, and Jongdae makes a face at him. "Are you going to write my name in your notebook for this?"

"What makes you think it isn’t already there?" Kyungsoo says, smiling innocently at Jongdae with nothingness in his eyes.

Jongdae straightens his jacket. It’s too hot to be wearing a blazer in August, but he wants to make a good impression. He’s a bit rusty on this whole auditioning thing. "How much longer is this going to take?" he asks. "Jongin’s nephew’s dol is in like—"

"Five hours, Jongdae, calm down."

"I should just leave now, and—"

"I’ll tell Joonmyun-hyung on you, if you leave," Kyungsoo says. "I will write him a very long letter."

"The fact that you know that’s a viable threat is the worst thing ever," Jongdae replies. "Ever."

"Maybe I wouldn’t know that if you hadn’t made out on my locker and dented it," says Kyungsoo, and he’s still smiling.

"You win this round, Kyungsoo," Jongdae says. "But not the war."

"Kim Jongdae?" the coordinator calls, and Jongdae swallows.

"Here," he says, and steps up to the stage.

⚘⚘⚘

 

"Hyung, you made it," Jongin says, face breaking out into a beaming grin. "I know I said I could do this without you, and I totally could, but I’m super glad I don’t have to."

"I promised, didn’t I?" Jongdae straightens Jongin’s crooked tie. He’d changed into his own suit in record time, and it’s even hotter in this jacket than the last one. "I don’t break my promises."

"You don’t," Jongin says. "I know you don’t. Still, it was getting terrible waiting out here for you."

"I’m here now," Jongdae says. "The audition took longer than I thought."

"How did it… How did it go?"

Jongdae pushes his carefully sculpted hair off his forehead. "It went okay."

"Just…okay?" Jongin looks nervous, like he’s suddenly more anxious about Jongdae’s audition than his nephew’s doljanchi. He’s gripping the ring box in his hand too tightly, so Jongdae takes it away from him.

"Don’t sweat it," Jongdae says. "And I got a part."

"Oh gosh, hyung, I’m so sorry, I never should have pushed you—Wait, what?"

"I got a part," Jongdae repeats. "In the musical."

"Congratulations," Jongin says, as they walk into the dinner hall. Jongin’s parents look up as they enter, frowns on their faces, but both of Jongin’s sisters are smiling in welcome.

The hall is lavishly decorated, with yellow flowers growing on vines climbing white trellises, and white tablecloths

"Thank you," Jongdae says. "Now, let’s go say hi."

Jongin takes a tremulous step forward, and as he does, Jongdae lets himself think, disbelievingly, about shaking hands with the director as he was offered the part.

Yes is a word Jongdae has spent so long carefully not expecting that he almost couldn’t reply.

He’ll tell Joonmyun about it, tonight. Maybe he won’t find out for a couple of weeks, or months, depending on how postal service is in the Amazon, but if the letter doesn’t reach before Joonmyun calls him, excited and cheerful at some awful hour of the night, Jongdae will tell him then.

And afterwards, he’ll tell Joonmyun how much he admires him, (how much he loves him), and how much he can’t wait to see him. Joonmyun will laugh at him, and Jongdae will hold his cell phone tightly and memorize the cadence of his voice as a lullaby.

"I hope you’ll come back to see the show," he’ll write at the end of the letter, and unlike the one in his sock drawer, this one will go straight to Joonmyun, with no hesitation.

Jongin hugs his sister, and Jongdae grins, because he’s happy, he’s really fucking happy.

On the way past several tables with fancy nameplates, Jongdae pauses. Somehow, out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees one of the yellow flower buds sticking out of an ornate glass vase open up completely, blooming. Jongdae briefly considers picking the flower up, and pulling off the petals, one by one, effeuiller la marguerite, but he dismisses it as quickly as he thinks it. After all, Jongdae already knows the answer.

Jongdae holds all the things that have gone right close to his chest, and returns to now, Jongin close to tears as he tickles his nephew’s cheek with one gentle index finger, and Jongin’s sister watching, pleased, as her brother, flour still under his nails, joins the family. Jongdae holds out his hand to Jongin’s sister, and smiles.

Jongin’s parents don’t look overjoyed to see him, but Jongdae is optimistic that they’ll cave eventually. It’s a nice change, that optimism, and he holds onto that too. 

The future looks exciting, and the only inevitability is that Jongdae is going to hold on and enjoy the ride.

⚘⚘⚘

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> links that might prove interesting:  
> summer splash  
> doljanchi  
> dream of laciun


End file.
